


Switched Paths

by Agus_Fagaimid_Suid_Mar_Ata_Se



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, class swap, depiction of a panic attack in chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agus_Fagaimid_Suid_Mar_Ata_Se/pseuds/Agus_Fagaimid_Suid_Mar_Ata_Se
Summary: Seven travelers set out on seven paths that, in another life, were destined for someone else in their future party.





	1. Mollymauk the Wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tiefling wakes up in a grave.
> 
> He has no tombstone  
> No memories  
> No name
> 
> All he has are the clothes on his back and a peculiar quarterstaff.

Someone got buried in the ground.

Someone else crawled out of the grave.

Who either of those people were was unknown to him. Dirt clung to his clothes, hair, tail, horns, and skin, his muscles ached even before he had started digging his way out, and fuck was his throat dry, making every long, deep breath a labor.

On the bright side, he wasn't six feet under anymore. The realization brought half of a smile to his face as he thought to himself, _No shit, genius_.

As he examined his surroundings, a small clearing in a wooded area, he found no tombstone, no marker, no bouquet of flowers. Nothing but disturbed earth to show that someone had been buried here. All he had on him were the clothes on his back and a quarterstaff. Despite the apparent lack of ceremony on the part of the mourners, whoever had been buried must have been loved by his gravediggers enough to leave him with one of his treasured possessions. That was the only reason he could think of to explain why they didn’t take such a piece of work.

The staff was beautiful, despite the dirt that still clung to it. It was made of silver wood with intricate symbols from tip to tip, each of them carefully carved and painted red. He spent a moment going over every symbol, taking his time as he ran his fingers over each individual one. Starting at the bottom he found a garden of flowers in which dwelled a serpent and a peacock. At the midpoint of the staff he noticed that some of the symbols had been cut off, leaving them indecipherable. The staff abruptly went back to unmarked wood, darker in shade than the wood below it, with a jagged line separating the two colors. Had the staff been broken and fused with new material? The question was abandoned when he saw, in place of whatever used to be there, a group of eight eyes. The shade of red used to color them was darker than what had been used on the lower symbols, and some of their edges had faint bits of red spilling out of the carving and onto the wood’s surface. He hesitated to touch any of the eyes, until he found a ninth at the quarterstaff’s rounded top.

When his thumb pressed into the last eye, his mind became flooded with flashing images of places he could not locate, events and actions he could not follow, faces he could not put a name to. In his panicked state he tried to step away, only to realize to his horror that he could not feel or control his own body in the torrent of imagery. The images started to come faster and faster and faster, leaving him with blurred glimpses of whatever they held. He tried looking around, but his eyes moved on their own accord, looking to and fro without rhyme or reason. He couldn’t even blink. He had no choice but to watch and hope for an explanation, or better yet for this insane barrage to end.

Then, just as it seemed that the flashing sights couldn’t get any faster, they were gone. Instead of the furious multitude of still images, he entered into a singular, silent vision. Rather than watching it as a living tapestry unraveling before him, he was in the vision. He could feel his body and eyes again, though he still could not control either. In the vision, he found himself in a wooden room, surrounded by a group of people. Each of them had a drink in their hands and a smile on their faces. They all seemed happy to be with him, a black furred tabaxi most of all. With a flash, the room disappeared and he was with some of them in a dark forest, not too dissimilar from the one he was just in. They all moved silently towards a dark building in the distance. There was a flash again, taking him into another room. The friendly group and the drinks were replaced by a simple table, across which sat a human woman. This time, however, he could hear the faint sound of her speaking to him, though it was so low and faded that he could not discern what she was saying. She might have seemed charming were it not for the steel behind her beautiful eyes. The world shifted in a flash once again, but this time his surroundings were too dark for him to get an idea where he was. The same human woman was there again, angrier than before and holding a book that he felt he just had to have. Instinctively, he tried to stretch out his hands to snatch the book away from her. This time, his body responded, lurching towards her. The book was almost his, but with the woman’s muffled roar and a flash of red, painful light from her hand, he was back in the forest and in the present.

During the onslaught of visions he must have collapsed, for he found himself on his hands and knees, and the staff on the ground in front of him. He didn’t have long to wonder what the hell he just saw, for his confusion was interrupted by the sound of footsteps not twenty feet away. He looked up to find a human, who had only just then noticed him in return.

“Well, well,” the human said in a gruff voice. “Who’s this now?” The man was taller than he was, though not by much. A leather jerkin covered his thick torso, and an iron halfhelm protected his big head. “Who are you?” he asked.

Though his throat was still in pain, he tried to respond. Nothing came out.

The human opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped when his eyes fell upon the quarterstaff. Though the tiefling drew a blank on his surroundings, circumstances, and even his name, he had the wisdom to recognize a greedy gaze when he saw it. “That’s a pretty stick you got there,” the man said, drawing a handaxe as he started to approach.

 _...get… away…_ he tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. It wasn’t just his dry throat and heavy breathing; his tongue and lips would not cooperate with his brain. Only one word managed to come out. “...empty,” he said, weakly.

“What was that?” the man laughed. “Speak up, devil boy. I can’t hear you.”

 _Get… away,_ he tried to say again, grabbing the quarterstaff, using it to balance himself as he tried to get up on shaking legs. Once again, the only word that came out was, “...empty.”

“What? You filthy and stupid?” The man was less than ten feet away now. “Why don’t you hand over that pretty little thing before this goes badly for you?”

 _GET AWAY!_ As a wordless scream tore through his tired throat, he pushed his hand out against the bandit. Neither of them expected the light-blue beam of magic that shot forth from the tiefling’s hand and slammed into the man’s chest. The force and surprise of the frosty ray sent the man stumbling back. As he looked down at his iced armor, his irate confidence dropped to unnerved shock. “I fucking hate magic!” he screamed as he ran away as fast as he could, which seemed slower than what a man his size could muster.

The tiefling was left alone again, staring at the hand that had just unleashed a spell.

He could do magic.

How the fuck could he do magic?

On top of every other goddamn question he had at the moment, now he had something else to occupy his busy mind. What other fucking surprises did he have in store for himself?

Could he do it again? He slowly stretched his hand out once more, and took a deep breath, focusing on trying to make the magic happen again. It took him a moment in his shocked state, but once again the beam shot forward, slamming into a tree this time, covering some of its bark in a layer of ice. He tried again and again, and each time he focused on the spell, it happened. After the fourth beam, he noticed that the symbols on his quarterstaff glowed when the spell had been cast. He let out a fifth beam to be certain, and once again the symbols glowed the instant the spell was cast. His gaze slowly trailed back to his hand, the air around it stained with the icy magic. Strangely, the cold sensation of the spell’s residue was… comforting. Familiar, even.

 _What the fuck is going on?_ he wanted to ask, but the only word that came out again was, “Empty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad that I posted this in time for the anniversary.
> 
> Long may he reign.


	2. Caleb the Warlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A broken man in a padded cell receives an offer.

“Can we just throw this bastard in a tub for once?” asked one guard to the other, referring to the man they dragged between them. “I feel like I’m going to puke every shift because of him.”

“No one here likes his smell,” replied the other, “but we don’t have a choice. One meal and one skin of water a day. We don’t let him bathe, walk on his own, sleep for too long, or let him use a spell. The archmage was very clear on all of that.”

“That rich bastard shows up once in how long and suddenly everyone’s on edge. I may be new, but if I’m assigned here for too much longer I’m gonna bring my complaints right to his wrinkled, ugly face.”

“Don’t joke like that! You wouldn’t say such things if you knew what happened to the last guard who pissed him off. I didn’t need to find out what happens when you fuck with a member of the Assembly, but I did anyway. I don’t want to experience a reminder of that because of you.”

“Your concern is touching.”

They arrived at the prisoner’s cell, a wooden room lined with cushioning behind woolen sheets nailed to the walls, ceiling, and floor. Without a window, the only way in or out was the door, a heavy piece of steel that was padded on the inner side to prevent him from hearing anything outside the room and to ensure that he didn’t have a hard surface to bash his head against. They dropped him to the floor like a sack of rotten potatoes, the newer guard impatient to get out of the room and away from him as quickly as possible. With a metallic screech and the jolting clang of the hinges and lock, the door was closed and he was alone once again.

Today went shorter than the last time his former mentor had visited, Bren thought. The questions were different, though at the moment he had trouble remembering what they were. The guards had tied him to a chair at the wrists, biceps, waist, neck, and ankles. In retrospect, it should have been obvious to him what was going to happen, but putting two and two together wasn’t as simple anymore. When Trent grew weary of his former pupil’s silence, the old mage showed him a small wooden box, from which he produced a group of crystals. The crystals today were different in shape and color than what had been used on him during his academy days. The unbearable pain they caused when they were inserted into his skin, however, was still the same. He had blacked out during the torture, and did not regain consciousness until he was being dragged back to his cell. 

Bren crawled to the far corner of the room, his arms burning with every movement. As usual, bandages had been applied where the incisions had been made. The medic, as always, gave him something to prevent infection but nothing for the pain. He laid himself against the corner of the room, resting his head against the wall. He tried to go over what he could remember of the day’s ordeal to see if he could figure something out, maybe decipher why today felt different or if there was something unusual about his former mentor. He could recall something… something being newly discovered, something about… about change, about extraction? It was too hard. He had trouble contemplating on any one thing for too long, and had just as much difficulty with memory, even in the short-term. Even since he arrived in this horrid place a fog hung over his mind at all times, making it hard to think straight or to recall anything from his past, save in his nightmares and intrusive thoughts. It didn’t matter, he supposed. It wasn’t as if he could do anything with the information.

He put the failure aside and performed the only ritual he could. When he was alone, he placed his hands against his skin at the base of where the bandages were wrapped, and when he concentrated as best he could, he was able to feel the magical energy that resided within his body. It wasn’t a concrete feeling. He likened it to feeling air by placing a hand on his chest and feeling it rise and fall with the expansion and contraction of his lungs. But it was good enough for him. He wasn’t able to cast spells in the asylum. His clouded, shattered mind lacked the clarity to do so, and even if he could the guards would beat him senseless if they saw him use so much as a cantrip. However, feeling the magical energy inside himself, knowing that the potential was still within him, was the only source of comfort he had in his hell hole. He always knew, always believed, that if he ever got out of the asylum he would restore his magical abilities, learn new spells, make himself greater than anything he ever was before. It didn’t matter how much he had diminished within the padded walls that surrounded him; all he had to do to feel better was this small amount of self-care. It was the only kindness that no one, including himself, could deny him.

As his hands settled on his arms, he let his heavy eyelids close, concentrating on the warmth of his magic. It always took a while, given how weak and slow he had become in his prison, but the reassuring feeling would eventually come. A moment had passed, and he felt nothing. Another moment passed as he concentrated as hard as he could, but nothing was all he continued to feel. Impatient, he moved his hands to another spot on his arms, and still felt nothing. This wasn’t right. It had never taken this long before. He tried again on his chest, stomach, neck, head, even directly on his bandaged forearms, but no matter where he tried he could not sense his magic. He could feel his heart beat faster and faster as the failures continued, his breath quickening and his shoulders starting to shake. In his agitated state, he wondered if...

No, he thought to himself. No, it couldn’t be. Anything but that.

He’d be beaten within an inch of his life if they caught him but he didn’t care. He had to be sure. He paused, took a deep breath, and cast dancing lights in the air around him.

Nothing happened.

He tried again. Still nothing.

His arms began to twitch, stirring up the pain in his fresh wounds. To hell with it, Bren thought. He flexed his hand and did his best to concentrate on throwing a fire bolt. The strenuous mental and physical effort made no difference. Once again, nothing happened. This wasn’t just the effects of his stay here or the pieces of his broken psyche. He had known these spells for years, he could do them in his sleep. He still wore nothing but the same, ragged clothes, so it wasn’t as if he was wearing an item that negated magical abilities. Trent had been in his cell once with dancing lights in his hand, so there was nothing about the room itself that hindered magic. The only explanation… was the crystals.

Bren did not know what the old crystals did to him, but they never had an effect like this. He was certain that the crystals used on him today were different. He tried his damndest to remember specifically what Ikithon had said to him earlier, but the words just wouldn’t come to him. Just the image of the old man’s face and the memory of the horrendous pain was enough to send his anxiety over the edge. He couldn’t breathe, his guts felt like they were being crushed, and the shaking sensation in his arms only aggravated the pain in his latest injuries. Try as he might, he could find no other explanation. His magic was gone. Now, at long last, they had finally taken everything from him. He slumped against the wall and let the tears run down his face.

An hour had passed before the panic subsided and he felt himself slowly falling asleep. Exhausted as he always was, sleep never came easy. The near constant emptiness in his stomach, the fog that clouded his mind, the knowledge that a guard might come by just to wake him up, his fresh injuries that would light up in pain if he moved too fast or put too much pressure on them, everything about his stay in this wretched place made it so hard to sleep. As his eyes closed, he wondered if he would die in this place one day.

 _It’s going to be okay_ , said a faint voice in the back of his mind that sounded welcoming and familiar.

Why would his conscience say such a thing, he wondered. How many years had he been in this place? Maybe tonight was the night he would finally die. Good riddance, he thought.

 _Just let go_ , said another voice in his head, feminine and familiar.

Who would care if he died in here, Bren thought to himself as the world around him faded away. There was no one left to mourn him.

 _Feeling sorry for yourself?_ asked a voice, deep and unfamiliar.

He startled awake, looking around the room for the source. He was alone, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The sound couldn’t have come from outside. The door and walls were too insulated, and the voice seemed so close.“Who is there?” he asked, weakly. “Who are you?”

_A friend. You look like you need one._

Bren stood up on wobbling legs, searching for the intruder. Was this a trick? Was Trent playing mind games with him? Observing the effects of his latest set of crystals? He looked down, and was surprised to find he could actually see himself. His cell was so dark that, normally, he couldn’t see his hand if it was an inch in front of him, yet now he could see himself in perfect clarity. He reached out to touch one of the padded walls and felt nothing. He couldn’t believe it. He was out of his cell. Any sense of relief at the idea was replaced by the uneasy confusion he felt in wondering where he currently was. The world around him was a shadowy void without light or echo. The only thing in it aside from him were thin vapors of smoke.

“What is this?”

 _I am no mage’s illusion,_ said the voice, _nor am I a dream._

“This is a trick,” he told himself, shutting his eyes and covering his ears with his hands. “This isn’t real.”

 _I suppose I can’t blame you for being so suspicious. Anyone would be if they were in your place. Perhaps this will earn your trust_.

He opened his eyes to find out what that meant, and saw the flow of smoke beginning to approach him, going straight for his head. He backed away from the oncoming fumes only to find more smoke coming from behind him. The gray smog circled around and above him before descending upon his head. When he opened his mouth to say something, the quick intake of breath let the smoke in, which rapidly filled his body. Strangely, the smoke didn’t make him cough or irritate his eyes. He found its warmth oddly comforting.

As his vision was obscured by the smoke thickening over his eyes, he could feel his mind beginning to clear. He could feel the clouds that obstructed his mental faculties being dissipated. For the first time in so long, he could actually think straight. Then the smoke parted as the black void shifted, bringing him into a familiar room. In the old days, when Ikithon would conduct his experiments with the magic crystals, Bren and his fellow pupils were placed in individual rooms to either prepare for or rest from Trent’s crystalline experiment. He could see his old self lying in a bed, fast asleep, with fresh bandages around his arms. What was the voice in the smoke and shadows trying to do? Remind him of a previous torture?

Then, Trent Ikithon appeared in the room. Bren, panicked by the very sight of him, tried to run but he couldn’t move his legs. He tried to shout, but he couldn’t speak. All he could do was watch as his former mentor stood over his sleeping counterpart. The old mage produced a pendant from his robes, and with his free hand touched the sleeping Bren’s forehead. The foolish boy did not stir, nor did the sound of Trent uttering a spell wake him. Ikithon’s hand and pendant began to glow with a sickly, yellow light. As he did this, the cold stone walls of the cell turned to wood illuminated by the light of a fireplace.

He knew this place. This was his childhood home. Though he remained fixed in a single spot, the smoke allowed him to turn at the waist and neck. He looked away from Trent and his old self and saw them. There they were. Alive. His mother sat at the kitchen table, needling away at a new scarf while his father prodded the fire with a poker. He was so deliriously happy just to see them again that he tried to rush forward to embrace them, only for his feet to not respond. His joy was broken when he remembered that this was only the projection of a memory. It was then that it dawned on him that this was a specific memory he was watching. This was his last visit home before that awful night.

“He’s getting too thin,” his mother said, her voice low and worried, as it had always been whenever she was fretting over him.

“Well, it’s a good thing he’s back at home,” his father replied. “A few home cooked meals and he’ll be at a decent weight in no time.”

“Did you see his bandages? He thought he could hide them under his sleeves, but I noticed them all the same. Did you notice how he pulled away whenever I tried to touch his arm? I wish he-”

“He probably injured himself while learning a new spell.” His father placed the poker by the side of the fireplace and took a seat by his mother’s side. “He’s a grown man, Una. He doesn’t need us fussing over him like a child whenever he visits.”

“His letters have become so infrequent, and he tells us less and less when he comes home. I’m worried, Leofric. What if the academy is being too harsh with him? What if-”

“You heard him, dear. He’ll be graduating soon. He’s probably so fixated on studying for exams that writing a few letters slipped his mind.”

Bren was bewildered. This was supposed to be the time he discovered them plotting treason against the empire. This wasn’t at all what they were talking about that night. How could he be remembering a conversation he never overheard?

Then, as if in answer to his confusion, his parents froze. The yellow energy he had seen emanating from Trent’s hand and pendant swirled around them. Bren blinked, and in that instant the magic was gone and his parents were back in their starting places.

“It’s time for a change,” his father said, poking the fireplace again. “Revolution can’t come soon enough.”

“The world will be better off,” his mother replied, still working away at her scarf, “when this forsaken empire is torn down.”

“They’ve already ruined our son. They won’t be satisfied until they corrupt every other mage to their ways.”

“One can only hope that Bren will come to his senses and be the first to light the torch that burns the academy to cinders.”

In his speechless state, Bren felt the smoke gently turn his head towards the top of the stairwell behind his parents where he found another younger version of himself, standing at the top. When Bren locked eyes with his past self and saw the feelings of shame, hatred, and betrayal on his face, he wanted to grab that foolish boy and strangle the life from him.

The room shifted back to stone, leaving Bren alone with the smoke, himself, and Trent Ikithon. The archmage leaned down until he was a breath away from his other self’s ear, whispering, “Your parents are traitors, Bren. You know what fate awaits all traitors.”

Bren exhaled, and he was back with the shadows and the smoke. Everything was clear. The memories were fake, implanted by Ikithon to further manipulate him. His parents were never traitors to the empire. The only truth that remained was that they were dead. Killed by his hand. Bren collapsed to his hands and knees and began to scream.

The voice let him wallow in his weeping madness for a moment before interrupting with a sympathetic noise. _They have taken so much from you. Humans can be so cruel._

He let out a breath of bitter laughter amidst his tears. “Is that why you’re here? To tell me things I already know?”

 _No,_ it replied. _I’m here to tell you the things I can do for you._

He let out a scoffing breath. “Like what?”

_I can give you power. I can free you from this accursed place._

That caught his interest. There was a little voice in the back of head protesting, certain that this was still a spell, a fabrication meant to force something out of him or just to add salt to his fresh wounds. But his caution was so much quieter than the voice and his own curiosity.

Whatever was speaking to him must have noticed his shift in mood, for it elaborated on its proposition. _There are other sources of magic, my friend. Sources that cannot so easily be harmed or nullified by your enemies. Sources that not even Trent Ikithon can understand, or defend himself against_.

Was the voice offering what he thought it was? It seemed too good to be true. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

 _I want to discover the arcane secrets of the world. I want your help to find them, to become wiser and stronger. But more importantly, my friend, what do you want_?

What did he want? What a question. He wanted this, all of this, to never have happened. He wanted to be the person everyone in Blumenthal could admire once more. He wanted his childhood home to be standing once again. He wanted his parents alive and proud of him. He wanted to be the kind of person who would never have even thought of doing what he did. Bren wanted to be anything other than what he was.

With the clouds hanging over his mind gone, he found it easier to recall things long past, and his wish made him think of so many people. He thought of Astrid and Eodwulf, of the nights they spent talking by campfires or candlelight in the dorms, speaking of their latest lessons, childhood memories, and hopes for the future. Strangely, he recalled the night that Astrid taught him, or at least tried to teach him, to dance. Eodwulf couldn’t stop laughing. None of them could. They were young, drunk, and having too much fun. As time went on and they grew older, nights like that one never came again.

He remembered the day the academy’s scouts came to his home and spoke to his parents, showering praise upon the Soltryce Academy and its mentors. They told of the successes of its alumni, of the good things they did for the empire, of how such honors could be in their son’s future if they gave him up to them. Everyone in Blumenthal had come out to congratulate him after the scouts had left. They were all so sure that he’d accomplish great things.

He thought of Trent Ikithon. He remembered the day the ugly, ancient man told the three of them that he would become their mentor, promising them glory in service to the empire, that the empire would be safer and stronger thanks to their efforts. Each of his lessons were more brutal than the last, and they found no mercy or restraint from the old mage. But they did become stronger, until Bren himself finally broke. When he thought of the things Trent forced him to do, the things that he himself chose to do, the answer to the voice’s question was simple. 

“Let me fix this,” he asked the voice in the shadows. “I have to fix this. I’ll do anything, just please let me make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

From the shadows above him formed an arm the color of flame; orange one moment, yellow the next, constantly changing. He could not see the body the arm was attached to, though the arm itself was of humanoid size and shape. Its hand opened and stretched out to him. _Then let me help you_ , the voice said. _Do you accept my offer?_

With a hunger that was stronger than his fear, Bren stood up, reached out, and took the unknown’s hand.

Just as the fiery hand grasped his own, there was a blinding, burning light that erupted all around him. The shadows were gone, and in their place was nothing but fire. The heat of it stabbed into his skin, making his scars and wounds burn. The pain reached further than his arms, racing into his shoulders, chest, legs, and head, every part of him was on fire though no flame touched his skin. Bren let out an agonizing scream, his mind was bombarded with flashes of the night he murdered his parents, of the murder of Eodwulf and Astrid’s parents, of Trent’s lessons and tortures. In his terror he tried to run but the hand would not let go of him. He could hear another sound, another voice. Someone was shouting, but the words were too muffled by the roaring flames for him to understand them. They were not too loud for him to recognize when the third voice’s words turned to horrified screams, and when it was silenced.

The voice from the shadows turned flames spoke again, much louder than before, coming from all around him. _BREN ALDRIC ERMENDRUD IS DEAD. RISE ANEW, REMADE FROM ASHES, CALEB WIDOGAST._

A second flash erupted, blinding him. As the world around him became a searing, white heat, all he could hear was his own screaming.

Then, the hellish heat and blinding white were gone, and in their place was darkness and the welcome sensation of cold, hard rain. It was the first time he had felt water in so long. They gave him less than a liter a day and that was only to drink. The staff and guards had always felt the need to mock his stench, his scars, the way he shook whenever someone got too close or spoke too loudly. Now, the rain was the only thing he could smell or hear. As the drops of water fell against his skin, the pain on his bandaged arms didn’t seem to hurt as much.

He turned his head upwards and opened his eyes to make sure this was real, and almost laughed when he found that it was. He was outside of the asylum, alone in a grassy field. The shadowy treeline of a forest was fifty yards from him. He stretched out his arms to let the rain soak every part of his body. Amidst his euphoria he discovered, clutched tightly in his left hand, a necklace. It was a red-gold chain attached to a small pendant that bore an unfamiliar symbol, circled by words he could not read. So captivating a sight it was that he almost didn’t notice the blood dripping from his arms. He could tell it wasn’t his own blood, but he didn’t care whose it was or how it got there.

For the first time in so long, he was free.

But he wasn’t. The voice said that Bren Ermendrud was dead, and that he was now…. It took him a moment to remember what the voice had called him. “Caleb… Widogast,” he said, so quiet he almost couldn’t hear himself over the weather. What did being Caleb Widogast mean? He still felt like himself, mostly. He was still wearing the same clothes he had on in the asylum. The same orange hair still hung down over his face. His latest bandages, soaked with blood and water, covered the same scars and half-healed wounds that had been inflicted on Bren. He had to wonder what the voice meant. Was it all figurative, or did the voice speak to a literal truth? Was he given Bren’s body? Did… did that mean that Bren died in captivity?

Whether he was Bren or Caleb, at least he was free. The voice had kept its word. Did it keep its word on its offer of power? Spying a large rock lying ten feet away from him, he stretched out his right hand and tried to cast fire bolt at it. Nothing happened.

He tried again. Nothing happened again.

He tried a third time. Still nothing.

The happiness faded as his smile curdled into a grimace. With clenched teeth and shaking hands, he tried to cast dancing lights. Nothing happened. Again he tried, and again there were no lights.

He stretched out his and tried to cast chromatic orb. Nothing happened.

This can’t be right, he thought. These were cantrips. They didn’t require any components, only the knowledge and the will to cast them. The marks under his bandages burned with every frustrated attempt, and the consecutive failures worsened the pain until it stung as sharply as Ikithon’s crystals, but he didn’t care. He didn’t come this far only to be capable of nothing. Just as the pain seemed to reach its zenith, he let out an unhinged, desperate scream, throwing out his hand once more, and a beam of crackling, unworldly energy shot out from it. The blast struck the stone with a loud crash, breaking it in two and sending pebbles flying into the air.

He took a moment to admire the effects of his new spell. He smiled again from ear to ear. He curled his hand into a fist, feeling the new magic burning within him. “Yes,” he whispered.

The sound of shouting in the distance cut through the rain and snapped him back to the present. He knew so little of what was happening, but he knew that he needed to run.

Now.

Clutching his new necklace tightly, he sprinted away from the shouting towards the dark treeline. He wasn’t sure where he was or where he was going, but he knew he had to run and keep on running. No matter what, he was never going back into a cage. Just before he entered the forest, the sound of the falling rain grew quiet as the voice echoed in his mind once again.

 _You will accomplish great things, Caleb Widogast_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a serious note, I am sorry this took so long. It quickly ballooned into a far larger chapter than originally intended. I have good chunks of the other five chapters already written, so I hope to get them out much quicker.
> 
> On a less serious note, MY VOTE WENT TO THE VICTOR! I DEDICATE THIS CHAPTER TO MY D&D BEYOND PRESIDENT, LIAM O'BRIEN!


	3. Nott the Monk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veth Brenatto has finally escaped from the goblins who held her captive. However, her freedom comes with the realization that she cannot return home to her husband and son, and that her goblinoid appearance means she won’t be safe anywhere in the empire. After spending over a week on her own, she discovers a trio of monks traveling towards Zadash. Overhearing them discussing magic, she decides to follow them. She’s nearly killed when they eventually discover her, but, after extracting the truth of her circumstances, the monks reason that this situation needs to be resolved by someone higher up the totem pole.

Zadash was one of the largest cities in the Dwendalian Empire. Despite its proximity to Felderwin, Veth Brenatto had never seen the famous, tall towers behind the triangular walls. The sack the monks had thrown her into assured that today would not be the day she would get to see any of it. _It sounds like a busy city_ , Veth thought as she was being transported to wherever the monks were heading. _Smells like one too_.

Though tall, Zadash was not a wide city. They had sacked her just out of sight of the city walls, and kept her there until they arrived at their destination, which on foot took what felt like an hour. The opening and closing sounds of several sets of doors made her more and more nervous, realizing they had finally entered wherever they were heading. She could tell by the change in the sound of their steps that they were now descending a long, stone stairwell. There was the sound of another door opening, and, without warning, the monk carrying her swung the sack off his shoulder, gripped it at the bottom, and hoisted it up into the air to dump her onto the hard floor below.

“Wait here,” he ordered. The monks left her in the cell, slamming the door behind them. The room was a tight space, consisting of four stone walls illuminated by the torch of a single sconce. Without a window, the only way in or way was through the closed door. Her only company was a pair of wooden chairs. As time went on and she was continuously alone with her own thoughts, she realized just how uncomfortable these hard chairs were to sit on for too long. She paced to pass the time, but that didn’t stop the jittery feeling she had coursing through her bones. Veth came to the conclusion that this was a place for interrogations. _What more could they want_ , she asked herself. _They already beat the truth out of me_. The bruise they had left on the right side of her jaw was still sore. The only thing she could do was wait and rub her injury.

Finally, the door opened again with a startling jolt to an unfamiliar face. The stranger was an elf, thin and muscular with dark skin, pointed ears, and a bald head. They wore similar garments to the others, consisting of blue and gray robes and pants. They did not seem outwardly hostile, but there was nothing friendly about their demeanor either. The elf took a seat on the chair in front of Veth. With every controlled movement and every second spent looking into the elf’s stony expression and unwavering eyes, illuminated and hidden by the dancing flames and shadows of the room, Veth could feel the imposing strength and poise this elf had. It scared her shitless.

“I am Dairon, Expositor of the Cobalt Soul,” they said. “The other monks tell me you have quite a story to tell. Is that true?”

Veth nodded.

“Sit.”

Veth resumed her seat in the other chair. Even seated, Dairon was tall enough to look down at her. When they slowly raised their hand, Veth recognized the gesture. “Are you going to hit me with your knuckles? Like they did?”

“Yes,” they replied, bluntly. “It’s called Extort Truth. It prevents people from purposefully telling a lie.”

Veth closed her eyes, turned her head so that the left side of her head was facing Dairon, bracing herself for the hit. Dairon allowed her just a second to do so before slamming a knuckle into the side of her jaw. Maybe Dairon went easy on her with the blow, as it didn’t hurt as much as when the last monk did it, but with their power the strike still racked her entire body, causing her to almost jolt out of her chair. She opened her eyes, trying her best not to cry from the pain.

“For the next 60 seconds,” Dairon commanded, “I want you to tell me everything about yourself. Now.”

“My name is Veth Brenatto. I’m not a goblin, I’m a halfling from Felderwin. I have a husband and a son. We were kidnapped by goblins. We escaped one night. Yeza and Luc got away while I distracted them and was retaken. The goblins had a mage. She drowned me and brought me back to life as a goblin. They kept me as a slave for months. I finally got away. Please, I just want you to help me!” By the end it took everything she had just to keep herself from bawling her eyes out.

“Who are you working for?” Dairon asked, their tone unchanged.

“No one. I’m alone, I don’t have anyone.”

“Why did you follow my fellow monks?”

“I heard them talking about magic. They said something about a Cerberus Assembly, something about bad mages working to hurt people. I thought maybe-

“How did you discover that?”

“I followed them. I trailed behind them on the road and hid in bushes when they camped.”

Dairon raised one eyebrow slightly. “You followed them?”

She nodded, unsure if Dairon was angry with her or with them.

“For how long? When did they discover you?” they asked.

“They found me on the morning of the third day.”

Dairon leaned back in their chair. “You tracked three, trained monks for nearly three full days without being noticed, and managed to overhear everything they said to one another?”

Veth, hesitantly, nodded again. At any moment she was ready for them to call her a liar or declare their suspicions that she was actually a thief who had come to steal some rumored treasure. The world saw her as a goblin, and she knew what goblins were like. They were not to be trusted. They were to be killed on sight, as every child of Felderwin was taught. She knew there was a big chance that these monks would kill her.

What she did not expect was the slight nod, seemingly of approval, that the elf gave her. “I’m certainly going to have a word with those three about discretion and perception. As for you, well...” There was a pause before Dairon continued, still surprised by the entire situation. “What do you want us to do?”

“Not kill me,” she replied.

“Aside from that, Mrs. Brenatto.”

Veth rubbed away a tear from her eye before it trailed down her cheek. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“You’re the first person to call me by my name in… a very long time. The goblins called me all sorts of awful things, and those monks I followed called me goblin.”

The elven monk studied her for a moment before responding. “You’re welcome,” they said, in a tone that Veth believed was trying its best to sound considerate, though Dairon’s low voice, her candidness, and her flat inflections made it hard to suss out what they were thinking or feeling. “Now, tell me why you went through all of this.”

“Help me,” she asked. “Please.”

“To do what, exactly?”

“Discover why and how this happened to me. Reverse it. Let me have a normal life again.” 

Dairon thought it over for a moment, never breaking eye contact with her. The silence in the confined room was unbearable. They had such a strong gaze, one that would have intimidated her in the best of circumstances. She knew she couldn’t look away, for fear of her anxiety being mistaken for disingenuity, but goddamn was it hard to look such a warrior as them in the eye for too long. “Veth, are you aware of the phrase, ‘devil’s advocate?’” they asked, finally breaking the silence.

She nodded, the uncertainty in her gut pinching even tighter.

“Then I will say what I know others in the order will say. We are historians, archivists, and warriors. We have academic texts on magic, our ki abilities might be comparable to magic, but we are not mages ourselves. We have a few clerics of Ioun, but I don’t know if they can help you. I’m not sure if we have information on cases such as yours, let alone possess the means to reverse what was done to you. Furthermore, I know that many will say that we cannot extend our energies to every sad story we come across. The world has too many, and there are monsters in it who create a hundred tragedies a day that must be stopped.”

Veth lowered her head, unable to meet Dairon’s eye any longer. _I guess I should’ve expected this. It was stupid of me to even think that they would_ -

“But,” Dairon continued, “they would not say such things of a monk in training.”

Veth expected this conversation to go many ways. This was not one of them. “I’m sorry, what?” she asked.

“I am an expositor. Do you know what that entails?” Dairon asked. Veth shook her head, so they elaborated. “We reveal the truths of the world. We drag those who hide in shadows into the light. There is corruption in every corner of the empire, and their filth is found by those who would look for it. We do not hide from the corrupt, we do not ignore them. We find them, and twist their arms until they tell us their secrets. We spy on friend and foe alike until we are certain we can distinguish the two, and we hunt those who are the enemies of the empire. We are the watchers to those who rule. We are not kind, we are forthright. Above all else, we are the servants of knowledge and truth.

“The idea of a citizen of the empire being killed and transformed into a… a goblinoid is unacceptable,” they said. Veth couldn’t help but notice the brief pause in Dairon’s exclamation of their disgust with her situation. It didn’t take a genius to know that they almost said something worse. “I do not know the woman who did this to you, but I can think of other mages who keep far more powerful company than a troop of goblins. I know they would take such magic and use it for their malevolent ends. I am certain more innocent people, like you, will suffer if we do not do something.”

Dairon leaned forward, focusing on her with their steely gaze even more intensely. “Become a monk of the Cobalt Soul, Veth Brenatto. Learn from us. Turn your eyes and ears towards the hidden injustices, and train your body to fight against wrongdoers and bring them into the light. What do you say?”

 _What do I say?_ It was too much for Veth to reply promptly. It took a moment to even think of how to respond, and once she did she stumbled with her words, anxiety ridden in every inflection of her voice. “Y-y-you want m-me... to wade through the-the-the f-filth of society... and f-f-fight against corruption? You need a w-warrior. That’s not… that’s not what I am.”

Dairon shrugged. “Many in the order have humble, mundane, or even immoral origins. The Cobalt Soul must draw strength from every corner of the empire. You can learn the skills necessary to serve our order, and to avenge the injustice that has been wrought against you and your people.”

She looked for another excuse, another way to explain why their plan was insane. “You said that your order is not kind. What does that make this offer?”

“A forthright one.”

Veth supposed it was. “And… you would be the one to teach me?”

They shook their head. “I can start you on this path and give you your first lesson, but I will not be your primary instructor. My students tend to be the ones with chips on their shoulders, the ones with too much anger or pride. Those I train could, in another life, become the very evil that the Cobalt Soul seeks to destroy. My other duties also keep me far too busy to be your teacher. Understand that I am not offering you an easy option, Mrs. Brenatto. The life of a monk of the Cobalt Soul is a difficult one. Many abandon their training because they do not have the fortitude to withstand it for long. But if you are indeed willing to do anything to reverse your fortunes, we may be your best chance.”

Veth was silent while she thought over Dairon’s words. They had a point. This was by no means going to be easy, but it was the only path she saw that led to a better future. “If… if I did this,” she said, her voice tripping with hesitation, “I’ll need… I’ll need to be called something else. I-I can’t let anyone I know learn that I am here.”

“We are good at keeping secrets,” Dairon replied. “I confess, though, that I do not understand your reason.”

“Would you take that risk if you were in my shoes? If you had a son and husband you couldn’t be with? I can’t let Yeza or Luc see me like this.”

Dairon considered for a moment, then nodded. “I cannot say that using an alias around truth-seeking monks is approved of, but if it would make you feel better, we can call you something else.”

Despite her request, Veth didn’t have a clue of what else to call herself. She had never been very creative and hadn’t given thought to a new name. She mulled over a few names that belonged to long deceased relatives or half-strangers she knew in passing, but none seemed to work for her or convince her that no one would grow suspicious if they heard someone with a halfling name was with a bunch of monks. When an idea finally came to her, it came not from someone she loved or knew. It came from a place of hatred. “Nott,” she said. “Call me Nott.”

Dairon titled their head slightly, eyeing her curiously. “What made you choose such a name?”

 _Of course the order of monks that want to figure everything out would want an explanation_. Veth hesitated, then explained, “Because I am not. They made me exactly what I was always. Not pretty. Not smart. Not good. Just not.”

Dairon was silent. It was impossible to ascertain what they were thinking. To her surprise, they leaned closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I shall keep the name Veth Brenatto a secret, but only if you agree to two conditions.”

“Okay.”

“One, have you contacted your husband in any way since your escape?”

“No.”

“You will write a letter to him, assuring him that you are alive and free, and that you will return to him when you are able to. Understood?”

Veth nodded her head.

“And second,” Dairon concluded, “you must call yourself Nott the Brave.”

She raised her eyebrows, bewildered. “But, I’m not brave. I’m not… anything, really.”

“Untrue,” Dairon countered. “You risked your life to save others, you escaped your imprisonment from the goblins who captured you, you’ve survived this far on your own, you followed a group of people who could have killed you easily, and you sought help from those who are feared by many. You’re braver than you know, Veth Brenatto.”

She did not believe them, but she was grateful for the thought. “Thank you.”

“Come with me. I will have someone acquaint you with all of the areas of the Archive. You will share quarters with other new recruits, as is customary. Tomorrow, at noon, you will meet me in the training ground for your first lesson.”

Dairon took her back up the stairs, revealing to Veth that she had been taken underground. Once above, she followed them into the library. Veth did her best to keep her eyes on Dairon’s back and not on the passersby who stopped in their tracks to stare at her. The pair came to a back room, in which they found a human man wearing the colors of the Cobalt Soul, seated behind a desk and reading a heavy tome. He bowed his head low at Dairon, and when he looked back up she saw his face change from admiration to revulsion at the sight of a goblin.

“Markhal, this is Nott the Brave. She is a new recruit to the Cobalt Soul.”

Markhal’s eyes opened wider. “Surely she’s not becoming an archivist.”

Dairon’s expression did not seem to change much, but the look they gave him forced him to avert his gaze. “Apologies, expositor. I meant no disrespect.”

“She will be studying to become a warrior. Perhaps, one day, even an expositor.” They turned back to Veth, saying, “Wait here,” before going past the desk into another room. Veth looked at the floor, at the walls, at some of the books on faraway shelves, anything to avoid looking at Markhal, who she could feel glaring at her.

Dairon returned a moment later, holding a bronze chain attached to a stylized eye. “This necklace bears the insignia of Ioun, the Knowing Mistress. Wear this always, so that none may doubt your place in the Cobalt Soul.”

Veth accepted the chain and hung it around her neck. The metal felt cold against her skin, and, though it was light in weight, it weighed heavily around her neck.

“I must attend to another matter. Markhal, you will show Nott around. Show her everything.”

Markhal was clearly uncomfortable with the task, but his distaste of her was second to his duty. “Understood, expositor,” he said, bowing his head.

Dairon left and Markhal was quick to carry out his task to the best of his ability. As he walked her back out into the library, his quick stride and manner of speech made it obvious that he was rushing in order to reduce his time in her company. He explained that the Archive of the Cobalt Soul had public areas in which members of the general populace could enter under supervision to peruse their vast collection of knowledge. As they stepped outside so that she could see the front of the building, Veth was blinded by the sun, but once she regained her vision her jaw dropped as the Archive of the Cobalt Soul in all of its glory came into view. In the center was the tallest tower she had even seen, stretching upwards in a tapering spiral until it extended outwards into a dome at the top. Flanking it were three, smaller towers. In the daylight, the pale cement shined, displaying a series of intricate carvings that ran throughout the central tower. Her wonder was cut short by Markhal’s voice, who she realized she had been ignoring whilst marveling at the Archive. “Furthermore, you’ll find that-”

“Is this one of the Tri-Spires?” she asked.

He looked at her only to display his confusion and annoyance at being interrupted. “What?”

“I always heard about the legendary Tri-Spires of Zadash. Is this one of them?

Markhal made a scoffing noise. “No. We’re on the western edge of the Pentamarket in the center of the city. The Tri-Spires are in the northern district. How could you have possibly missed them when you entered the city?”

“They shoved me into a sack in the woods and carried me all the way here.”

Markhal was speechless for a moment, more out of a shocked disbelief than regret at the harsh, condescending tone he used with her. When he continued speaking he explained that, in addition to the library, the Archive possessed many private rooms for meetings, prayers to Ioun, and sensitive, academic research. The monks had their own dining hall and barracks in the rear of the Archive. Below ground were a group of sand pits for training and sparring between the monks, a series of obstacle courses to simulate the types of challenges a monk would face in both urban and wild environments, and cells meant to hold those taken captive by monks in battle. Throughout the tour, Markhal explained the strict schedule and standards that the Cobalt Soul expected of all its members. “Even ones as… unique as you,” he added, not even bothering to look at her. Along the way, everyone they passed was shocked by the mere sight of her. Few cared to whisper their reactions to their companion; most openly voiced their negative opinion. By the end of the day, it seemed everyone in the Archive had learned of their latest recruit.

Markhal left her the second his task was done. The growling emptiness in her stomach demanded that she go to the dining hall. Once there, there was thankfully no line to get food, nor did she have to ask any cook to serve her. She took a bowl of soup, bread, and a tall glass of water. She would have preferred wine, or even whiskey, but there was none to be found. The room was roughly a quarter full, leaving an open space for her to sit and avoid talking to any of the people who were staring at her. She did not look at them, keeping her eyes focused on the food in front of her. Her long ears, however, picked up everything that they were saying.

“The hell is this bullshit?” asked one of the novices.

“Holy shit, the rumors were true. What the hell is a goblin doing here?” asked another.

“Dairon recruited her,” said what sounded like an older member.

That shut the entire room up. “Are you serious?” one monk asked, flabbergasted.

“They found her on the road, and she got taken straight to Dairon. Spoke with Ruceb about it and he told me the two of them talked for less than an hour. Don’t know why, but now she’s training to be one of us.”

The room was gobsmacked. She could feel them staring at her. “How the fuck do you convince Dairon, fucking Dairon of all people, with just one conversation?” she heard someone ask.

“Might be she’s tougher than she looks.”

“Remind me not to fuck with the goblin.”

The others continued to argue amongst themselves; some voiced agreement with the sentiment, while others scoffed at the idea of being intimidated by a goblin. The eavesdropping Veth was left speechless. She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t even learned how to throw a punch yet and she already had a reputation. The others kept their distance from her, and she kept her distance from them. After finishing her meal, she had little else to do, so she went to the barracks, found an empty cot, and did her best to fall asleep. Memories of a life denied to her plagued her throughout the night. She gripped the symbol of Ioun tightly in her hand. She had never prayed to the Knowing Mistress before. The only god she really knew of was the Wildmother. Veth wondered if either goddess would listen to a goblin’s prayer.

When she awoke the next day, she found a fresh set of clothes had been left next to her, consisting of a white tunic, a thin blue sash, and a pair of baggy, gray trousers that went to her knee. Next to them was some paper, a quill, and a small bottle of ink. _Guess she wasn’t kidding about writing to Yeza_ , she thought. She placed the paper and ink on her bed and grabbed her clothes, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to write a decent letter in her groggy state. The barracks did not provide her the privacy she wished, so she dashed to a nearby lavatory to change into her new garb. She had never worn such clothes before. They just didn’t feel right. As she tightened the sash around her waist, that feeling only deepened. She looked more like a parody of the image of the genuine monk that Dairon had displayed. It was easy for her to imagine other monks laughing at the mere sight of her.

Stepping out the barracks, she was greeted by the hot sun, high in the sky of a beautiful day. It took a moment before it hit her that she slept in. _Shit!_

She arrived at the underground pit, out of breath. Waiting for her was Dairon, meditating in the sand. “Who comes to begin their journey in the Cobalt Soul?” they asked without opening their eyes.

She almost called out her real name, only to catch herself at the last minute. “N-nott.” she exclaimed, trying to sound confident despite her panting. “...the brave!” she added when Dairon opened an eye with a raised eyebrow. Maybe over time, the name and title would come easier to her.

Dairon rose to their feet. “Your future lessons will start at dawn. I gave you the reprieve of a long night’s rest. Others will not. Don’t be late for another lesson.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nott said.

Dairon nodded. “We begin with your basic stance,” they said, extending a leg out and raising their arms in a defensive position.

Nott tried to mimic Dairon, holding her arms up and widening her legs. Dairon paused to correct her, placing their hands and feet against Nott’s arms and legs, moving them into the right position. Satisfied, Dairon stepped back and resumed their own stance.

“Due to your size,” they said, “we won’t be teaching you how to overpower your foes by sheer strength. A panther cannot fight the same as a bear, but that does not make it any less deadly. Instead, you must be light as a feather. When your enemy strikes, you must not let them hit you. When they attack, you must counter what they give you, so that you would make them afraid to attack again. And when you strike, you must make every blow count. As you fight, your body and mind must work congruously. To defeat an enemy, you must know them. In the heat of a fight, you will learn what your enemy’s weaknesses are and how to exploit them. Do you understand?”

Nott nodded her head, unsure of herself but willing to do just about anything to see her family again, with her in it and in the right body once more.

Dairon nodded. “Let us begin, Nott the Brave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two notes:  
> 1, writing about bad things happening to Nott is like hearing that my mom had a bad day. It physically hurt me at times to write certain parts of this chapter.  
> 2, I might have played a little too loose in places with the imported, canonical worldbuilding in regards to the Cobalt Soul and the Archive. I consulted the wiki heavily in my research for this chapter, as well as trying to watch all the key scenes of the Archive in the show. If you see something inaccurate, do let me know.


	4. Fjord the Cleric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sailor nearly lost to sea is rescued by a far more benevolent savior.

Fjord had never seen an explosion until he got an intimate introduction the night Sabian lit a fuse in the Tide’s Breath hull. The fiery blast threw him overboard, sending him with a hard crash into the ocean below. The piercing ringing in his ears was muffled into a low buzz as air was replaced by water. Amidst the ringing he could just barely pick up a cacophony of smothered sounds. As his mind slowly recovered from the shock, he realized that they were the screams of his shipmates intermingled with the roaring thunder of the storm above. In the dark waters of the Lucidian Ocean, his half-orcish eyes could discern various dark shapes, all but one of them small, each illuminated by bright bolts of lightning. The lightning was the only thing giving him his bearings. Between the flashes, Fjord could make out one shape that was getting closer and closer to him. Thank his stars, someone must have seen him fall overboard and dove down to get him.

Another flash, and the dark shape took up more of his vision as it approached.

Another flash, and it was close enough for Fjord to see its burnt, wooden hull. In that horrible moment, Fjord realized that it wasn’t a friend coming to save him. It was the ship. The ship was sinking, and in his terror Fjord realized he wasn’t floating back up.

He was sinking too.

In his dazed state, he tried to start pulling and kicking to swim back to the surface, but his body wouldn’t respond. He kept trying, desperately ordering his arms and legs to respond to his brain. The effort only aggravated a sharp pain in his chest. Fjord looked down and saw the dagger that Sabian had left behind, still lodged in his abdomen. Without thinking, he let out a scream, and watched as the bubbles of air escape his mouth. As he continued to sink, a new feeling swept over him. Something cold and strong touched him at his wrists, ankles, and neck, coiling around until it had a firm hold of him. He tried to look to the sides to catch a glimpse of whatever it was, only to see nothing. He had sunk so low that the world was near pitch black, the lightning above reduced to brief, faint glows. Whatever had him started to pull him down faster, away from the descending ship. He tried to fight it, only to find it impossible. There was nothing he could do. His body would not respond, his lungs were devoid of breath, and even keeping his eyes open was becoming impossible. Through his murky vision he saw a sudden, distant flash of light in the sky above. He thought it was lightning again, but this light was far brighter and didn’t fade with a flash. It grew bigger and bigger, almost as if it was getting closer to him. Soon the blinding light was all he could see, vanishing the darkness around him. The thing holding his limbs and neck wavered. He felt a second sensation, warm and equally strong, grab him from above and start to pull.

That was the last thing he felt before losing consciousness.

When Fjord awoke, he was in a small wooden room. He found a bed beneath him, a blanket over him, and a window by his side that let in the light of a gray day, which for him at the moment was too bright. Groggy did not begin to describe how he felt: a soreness wracked him from head to toe, his throat was dry, his lips so chapped that licking them did nothing to help, and his eyes could barely open. At least the ringing in his ears was gone. In its place was a more soothing sound. From the next room through the walls he could hear a woman humming. He brought a hand to where Sabian had thrown a dagger to find bandages wrapped around his torso. A second glance around the room revealed a set of clothes that had been laid out for him. Guess now was as good a time as any to meet his rescuer, Fjord figured.

He donned the fresh clothes and stepped out on weak legs into the main room of what he assumed was a cabin. It was not a large room. On one side there was a modest kitchen, and on the other a makeshift bedroom. He found a woman with her back to him, kneeling before a hearth and poking the burning wood with an iron poker. The creaking of the wood beneath his feet announced his entrance. She stood up, placing her poker to the side, and turned to face him. The woman before him appeared to be the same age as him. She was a human, tall and beautiful with dark skin and long hair that cascaded down her back in brown curls. Her white tunic was sleeveless like his own, though in the place of trousers she wore an ankle-length, brown skirt with rivers of golden thread running through it. The delight in her warm, brown eyes was plain to see. “Good to see you up and about, sailor,” she said, a soft smile adorning her lips. “I was worried you’d sleep til winter.”

“Hello,” he said, awkwardly. “I guess I owe you a bit of gratitude.”

“You do. I personally put you on the best bed on the whole island.” Fjord placed a hand against his lower back, flexing with a groan.

“Is that why I feel so stiff?” he asked.

She shrugged, her smile widening in an ear-to-ear grin. “Hey, I said it was the best bed, I didn’t say it was a good bed.”

Her candid affability brought out a brief chuckle from his tired throat. She seemed extremely nice, though so extroverted that he felt he’d soon be overwhelmed by her amiable energy. Fjord thanked his lucky stars that at least he hadn’t been saved by a pirate or slaver. His smile disappeared when the memory of the explosion came back to him. “Is there anyone else here!?” he asked, desperately. “Did you pull other sailors from the wreck?”

Sadness and sympathy overtook the woman’s expression as she shook her head. “The ship went down in the explosion. I’m sorry. You were the only I pulled out.”

His hopeful desperation turned sour. He tried to say something, but he could feel the trembling in his throat before a word could come up. He turned away from her and all but ran back to his room, shutting the door behind him. The woman, whoever she was, said nothing at his retreat, nor did she speak when, an hour or so later, she brought him food and drink. He quickly wiped away his tears in a vain attempt to hide them. She left him with his meal and to his mourning. He had little appetite, but the fresh, cold water and hot, brothy soup were too tempting for a man who had almost drowned. She came again later to bring him supper, a simple meal of fish, bread, nuts, and ale, and left again without speaking. Once more, he could not resist the meal, despite his seeming loss of appetite. As he slowly ate, Fjord could hear her singing to herself in the other room. Her voice was low, soft, and sorrowful as she sang a tune that Fjord could recall hearing in a pub one night in Port Zoon:

“Of all the money that e’er I had,

I’ve spent it in good company,

And all the harm I have ever done,

Alas it was to none but me.

And all I’ve done for want of wit,

To memory now I can’t recall.

So fill to me the parting glass,

Good night and joy be to you all…”

Though he knew he could sing along with the rest of the lyrics from memory, Fjord could not muster the strength for a song. When he slept, which did not come until late into the night, he dreamed of Vandran.

Fjord slept late into the next morning. When he finally woke, he found a breakfast of dried fish, bread, crackers, and tea waiting on the stand beside his bed. Steam still floated from the cup. He must have just missed her, Fjord assumed. It wasn’t until noon that he felt he could leave the room again. Fjord found her seated on the couch that served as her new bed. She had pulled her skirt up above her knees, fixing it in place with a knot. As she put on the last of her sandals, she looked at him with a welcoming gentleness. “Morning, sailor. You wanna stay here today, or do you get out for a while?” she asked, her voice not as loud as it had been when he first met her.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Know how to fish?”

“I’d be a pretty shoddy seaman if I didn’t.”

Her smile returned as she produced two fishing poles from under the couch. She tossed one to him and pointed to a pair of boots in the corner. He grabbed them and followed her out the door.

The woman’s cabin was built on a solid patch of dark gray stone between two cliffs, each a distance of ten yards away. The cliff above them was not of a grand height, but at such a close distance it blocked any view of what lay behind it. In the other direction, the second cliff stood ten feet above the beach. The sky above was still gray, though at least there seemed to be no sign of an oncoming storm. The familiar scent of saltwater, the crying of gulls, and the crashing of the waves filled his senses, but the reminders only made him think of those who could not share the day with him. The woman led him down a winding path onto the beach below. As his feet touched the sand, he noticed a small wooden boat tucked into an alcove in the cliff side and covered by a tarp. Fjord saw no trail in the sand between it and the shore, but reasoned that it had been at least a few days since his rescue, so the wind had probably blown it away.

The pair stepped into the surf, casting their lines far out into the water. A minute or two passed before he broke the silence between them. “I never thanked you properly for saving me.”

The woman gave him a small half-smile, her eyes filled with condolences. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t do the same for the rest of your crew,” she replied. “But who knows, maybe they got lucky.”

Fjord hung his head and went back to his line, though no fish was there to take his attention from her. Another moment of silence passed between them. “What’s your name, sailor?” she eventually asked.

“Fjord.”

“Where you from?”

“Port Damali.”

“That’s quite a ways away from here.”

“It is.”

The woman nodded, as if to prove that she had taken the hint, and focused again on her line. That, in the end, only made it worse. She may have been trying to respect his feelings, but her compassion made Fjord feel awkwardly rude. She had saved his life, fed him, put a roof over his head, and he didn’t even give her the courtesy of a proper conversation. Guilt finally spurred him to speak again. “I never caught your name, Miss…?”

“Ardnava,” she replied, happy to see him engaging with her.

Fjord thought it over in his head, comparing it to the host of names he had heard in his travels. “That’s a rather strange name for a human.”

Her smile grew wider, a wicked gleam sparkling in her eye. “And how do you spell your name, Fjord of Port Damali?”

He looked at her for a second, knowing she was setting him up for a joke at his expense. “F-J-O-R-D,” he spelled out, bracing for the incoming jape.

She tilted her head, which made her smile seem all the more insufferable. “So shouldn’t you be ‘fyord?’”

He frowned at the comment, for it was not the first time someone had brought that issue to his attention. “Well, the Damali dialect leaves a lot open to interpretation.”

Ardnava laughed. She did so without restraint, letting her deep voice fill the air around her, rivaling the crashing of the waves. Her smile went from ear to ear, showing off the dimples in her freckled cheeks. Fjord wanted to say something else, but the sight of her and the infectious nature of her joy kept his lips shut. Vandran had taught him how to sail, fight, and barter, but no force in any plane of existence could ever help him be articulate with beautiful women.

Ardnava did not have to ask him for help during the next few days, for he volunteered without saying a word. He joined her when she fished, collected oysters by the rocks with her, even took her up on an offer to collect sea shells. She started every morning with a song, but that was not all she had in her arsenal. No matter what they did together during the day, she had a joke, or two, or three up her proverbial sleeve. In the beginning it was as if she tested the waters with small quips, to see what was the respectful limit of man who had recently suffered a great tragedy. When it became clear that Fjord had recovered enough to be around other people, and continually engaged with her, Ardnava’s sense of humor was revealed in all its terrible glory. It amused her to no end to see just how much her jokes could drive him to the brink of insanity. “Hey, sailor, do you know why paladins wear chain mail?” she asked one afternoon as they carried a full basket of oysters back to the cottage.

Fjord sighed. “Why?”

“Because it’s ‘holey’ armor!”

Fjord quickly became accustomed to the sound of his defeated groans mixing with her laughter. Another time, while she showed him the best way to prepare an eel, Ardnava asked him, “Hey, sailor, you heard what they said about the ghost who escaped from prison?”

“What?”

“They say that she’s a free spirit!”

“I wish you had left me to drown,” he said, which only made her laugh harder. There were worse things than being the guest of a comedienne, Fjord supposed. The most infuriating part of it all was that it was near impossible not to share in her happiness. Her laughter, her charisma, and her warm, lovely smiles could make his heart skip a beat without any warning at all. Ardnava had this quality about her that made Fjord abandon any desire to be shy or reserved, so that he would not ruin any minute he spent with her. As beautiful and wonderful as she was, he knew that there was more to his feelings than anything romantic or physical. There was another element to her and the way he felt, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. There was something about Ardnava that made him want to follow her wherever she went, listen to whatever she had to say, experience new things with her. From time to time, he felt the urge to ask how exactly she saved him, and if she knew just what were those things that had grabbed him that night, but the question always got caught in his throat.

On what might have been the fifth or sixth night of his stay, as they drank sweet ale and watched the sunset from the entrance of her cabin together, Fjord worked up the courage to ask one of the questions that had been on his mind. “Why are you on this island, Ardnava?”

She shrugged, taking another drink. “I suppose I’m taking a brief rest before I go back out there,” she said, tilting her head towards the horizon.

“I take it you’ve seen your share of excitement.”

“What can I say? I’ve got the heart of an adventurer. There’s no road in the world I would not walk, nor any sky I would not fly, nor any water I would not sail.”

Fjord cocked his head. “Why? You just want to see the whole world?”

“Yes, and help it where I can.” Though her smile remained, Fjord could see a serious sincerity in her eyes as the sunlight shimmered in them. “It’s a big world we live in, filled with so many sorts of people. It’s a shame that so many of them never get the chance to see more of it. It would be better if the pathways of the world saw more travelers. The changes that they could bring. A friend of mine once told me something she heard: ‘Leave every place better than you found it.’” She turned from the horizon to look at him. The beauty and the passion in her eyes took his breath away. “You ever think of having a life like that?”

It was not a question that Fjord anticipated. Was she asking if he would stay with her? Go somewhere with her? Be an adventurer with her? The idea was not unappealing, though the briefness of their time together and the multitude of unanswered questions he had brought him pause. Fjord found it hard to believe that she was of an age with him. The wisdom she carried seemed far beyond her years. He felt almost like a child in the company of a parent or mentor. He hadn’t felt this way since his early days under Vandran’s tutelage. After he thought over her question, he replied with honesty, looking away from her, back to the setting sun. “I don’t think any person or place is better off for having come into contact with me.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” she responded, reaching over to gently punch him in the arm, “none of that self-deprecating crap on my island.”

The pair drank into the night. Ardnava told him tales of her travels that seemed too wild and spectacular to be true, but in his drunken elation he hung on every word she said. Fjord surmised that he had gotten quite drunk, for she had managed to talk him into singing. They started off, appropriately, with a tune about drunken sailors, which opened the gate for a host of music to bombard the night with. They sang of sailors leaving their girls, of cruel wars in high, faraway lands, of mollymauks rising and diving over traveled waters and restless skies, of epic battles with krakens, of the famous Ruby of the Sea and how she was the best lay ever. The night spiraled until it reached its climax, the pair dancing around a makeshift bonfire they made on the beach, each with a bottle of ale in their hands. Fjord led her in a shanty:

“I bought her rum and I bought her gin, oh,

Way-hey, bully in the alley,

I bought her wine, both white and red, oh

Bully in down in shinbone al,

So!

Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,

Way-hey, bully in the alley,

Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,

Bully down in shinbone al!”

In his deliriously, drunken dancing state, he lost his footing, and trying to reach out for Ardnava’s hand to catch himself only brought her down to the sand with him. The pair laughed their guts out while their ale spilled out onto the beach. “Where’d you pick up that song?” Ardnava asked amid her inebriated giggling.

“Bully in the alley!” Fjord shouted into the night air, sending them both into another fit of laughter. “Whenever Vandran’s in a good mood, he leads us all in a rendition of it. I swear, the crew can fill the entire ocean with our chorus. The song… is one of his favorites.”

Was one of his favorites, a little voice in the back of his head reminded him. As can happen when one drinks too much, Fjord felt his mood suddenly shift, his happiness deflating into a deadened moment of realization. He was taken out it when he felt Ardnava’s hand slip into his own. He turned his head in the sand, looking at her staring up into the night sky. “You sing well, sailor,” she said.

Fjord turned his head back up, peering out in the starry void of space. “Thanks.”

The next morning’s hangover did not muddle the clarity of the conclusion he had reached that night on the beach. Ardnava’s company, as pun-ishing as it could be, was the only thing that had gotten his spirits as high as they had been at. But Ardnava’s laughter and the time he spent with her did not fill the hole that had been left in his chest, that he had been ignoring. Later, in the afternoon, she sent him to her garden atop a hill at the center of the island to collect ingredients for their dinner. It was during this walk that he realized just how small the island was, figuring he could walk the entire shoreline in an hour. At the garden, he looked in every direction, seeing no other island and no sign of passing ships. The skies were gray and the breeze chilly that day. He thought it strange, given the tropical climate, but fitting, given his current mood. In his lonely watch of the ocean around him, he thought of Vandran. He did not weep as memory upon memory crashed upon his mind, only feeling a disquietness fall over him. Fjord lost quite a bit of time atop the hill, staring out into the dismal horizon.

Fjord tried to keep his feelings to himself, but as dusk turned to night and he sat in Ardnava’s kitchen, cutting up the fish as she sat across from him, mixing around with her vegetables and spices, he dropped his knife and broke his silence. “Why am I here?”

She looked up from her work, surprised by the question. “Well, until a second ago, you were here preparing a fish-”

“I meant why I am alive?” he snapped.

She was taken aback by his suddenly brusque tone. He did not plan on being so aggressive, but the grief that had simmered deep within him for days finally took hold of his heart and tongue. Ardnava tried to say, “That’s a question many people ask themselves-”

“Most people don’t get thrown overboard by some treacherous bastard with a fuse. Any man could have been pulled from the water. Why me?”

There was something in her eyes that made him feel there was something she wasn’t telling him, and he had the suspicion that she wouldn’t tell him. “You’ve seen my boat, sailor,” she said, gesturing towards the shore outside with her knife. “There’s barely enough room for two on that thing.”

Fjord curled his fingers into a fist, stabbing his palm with his uncut nails. What the hell had been that thing that grabbed him from below, and what was the light that grabbed him from above? What did Ardnava had to do with all of this? There was no way she was just out on her tiny little boat in the middle of that monstrous storm. None of this made any sense. So many questions to ask, but instead his pain dictated his words. “There was someone else aboard the Tide’s Breath whose life was far more important than mine. You should have saved him.”

“I wonder if he would agree with your assertion.”

He shot a dirty look at her. “That is not an answer.”

“And that was not a question you asked me before,” she retorted, her own voice getting stronger. “That was an accusation.”

Fjord opened his mouth to say something else, only for nothing to come out. Silence held his tongue, and in his hesitation he came to the realization that she was right. Ardnava saved his life, gave him food and shelter, even tried to make him smile with her charm and her jokes, and he spat all his sorrow at her like it was venom. To his shame, Fjord realized that he really did just try to guilt trip her over saving his life. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, turning his head away and covering his face with his hand. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean… I-”

She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder to stop him. “I understand. Guilt is a common feeling when you survive ordeals that others did not. I know how difficult this is for you.”

He let a malcontent scoff escaped his throat. He looked up at her, anger and sadness equally mixed in his eyes. “What do you know about me?”

Ardnava was silent for a moment, then nodded as she pulled her hand away. “It is true. As much as I’ve enjoyed these past few days with you, I still know so little about you. If you want that to change, the only way to do so is to tell me.”

Part of him, the grieving, bitter part who hated being the one who survived that night, wanted to deny her any knowledge about himself. Then again, it wasn’t as if he had anything to lose by talking to her.

Fjord thought he would just tell her about the Tide’s Breath, her crew, and his time aboard her, but instead he let it all out. He told her of Driftwood Asylum, of the kids there who mocked his weight, appearance, and ancestry. He told her of his first jobs on various docks as a teenager, of the scraps he would get pulled into because some idiot saw a half-orc and wanted to start a fight. He told her of the first time he met Vandran. He couldn’t stop himself from rambling on about the lessons the old man gave him, his first time out at sea, learning how to negotiate with other sailors, merchants, and port officials. Then, his momentary elation at traveling down the nicer parts of memory lane faded as he talked about Sabian, and how that piece of shit ruined everything. He finished by saying, “And now… without a ship, without my mates, without my captain... I don’t know who I am. I was finally becoming a person I could live with, and now I don’t know if I’ll ever become that person again.”

Ardnava was silent throughout however long he took to tell her his life story. Her expression would shift back and forth between sympathy and pleasure as his story veered from miserable to joyful and back to miserable. When he finally ran out of things to say, she told him, “I wish I could get to know this Vandran. He sounds like a good man.”

“He is. ...was.” Fjord wondered how long it would take him to get used to saying that. Given how much of his personal baggage he had just laid at Ardnava’s feet, he concluded that it would be a long time. “So, can you tell me why you wanted to know so much about me?” he asked, trying not to sound as curt as he was before.

“To teach you something,” she replied.

He furrowed his brow, confused.

“And what would that be?”

“Change.”

“What about it?”

She explained, “Change may not always be as easy, but it is necessary. That necessity is a good thing.”

“Yeah?” he asked, skeptically. “Care to explain how?”

“You were raised in an environment that did not care for you. In place of love and acceptance, you received ridicule and ostracization. You couldn’t change how others saw you, especially those who decided to hate you for what you are, those who made up their minds without giving you a chance. But then you met this Vandran. He saw your potential and helped it grow. Was this not a change for the better? Did he not use change to bring comfort and purpose to one who was in need of both?”

He gave the inside of his bottom lip a slight nibble. “It was a change for the better,” he admitted.

“You are too concerned with the pain of yesterday’s torment, and with the fear of tomorrow’s uncertainty. But today is the day you live in. Today is the day to reflect on who you want to be. Today’s choices are the ones that influence your world. It’s no mystery why today is called the present. Understanding that fact will lead you to change the world for the better.”

Fjord shook his head. “The world is not that simple. It doesn’t just change.”

Ardnava retorted, “Then change yourself.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, so Ardnava elaborated. “The world we live in is defined by change. The lands and waters around us, languages, nations, cultures, all of these things change. For every change that seems out of your control, there is always something we can influence. Change yourself, and you change the world and the people in it.

“You were a lonely boy in an orphanage. Then a kind man appeared and took you under his wing, making you a sailor. You were a sailor on a ship, then another man destroyed that ship, taking that part of your life away from you. Now you are here, uncertain of what lies ahead. We cannot decide if the world gives us clear skies or raging storms. But we underestimate our own choices and the impact they have. If you drop anchor during a storm, you will never sail on a calm day again. It is only by facing the storm and using what you know that you can survive it. When you see others drowning in the water, you can sail away, or you can pull them out. There is a chance to influence the world every day, to help it become better than it is. That is the power of change.”

There was no anger or malice in her tone or gaze, but her inner strength and conviction, the confidence she had in her wisdom, made it hard to look her in the eye. He always lacked such qualities in himself, and envied those who seemed to wield it so easily. And yet, despite how small he felt before her, how the shame, guilt, and grief deep inside him urged him to shy away from her, Fjord could not look away from her. “How?” he asked her. The anger was gone from him, and in its place was a desire, a hunger to feel the same power and faith that she had.

“As I said, change yourself,” she answered, softly. “You make your own world.”

He did not speak again for the rest of the night. They cooked and ate together in silence. After finishing the last bite, he chose to retire. As Fjord made his way back to his room, her words stopped him in his tracks. “Sailor, one last thing.” He mustered the strength to look back at her. Her expression was neutral, almost stony in comparison to her normal enthusiasm. “That question I asked you yesterday. About having a life of bringing change, of changing the world for the better. Have you thought about it?”

He broke eye contact with her, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Yes,” he replied, almost whispering. “I would like to change the world for the better.”

She nodded and took a drink of her water. This time, he broke the silence. “I’m sorry, Ardnava. And… thank you. For everything.”

She smiled at him. “You’re forgiven, and you’re welcome, sailor.”

He smiled back at her and went to bed.

Fjord awoke the next morning to an empty cabin. There was no smell of tea or soup, and he could not hear the lovely sound of her humming or singing. He came into the front room to find that the door was open. Checking for no other signs of what might have happened and fearing the worst, he rushed outside, not even stopping to put his boots on. The sun was shining and the calm sea gave off a cool breeze, but neither brought him any comfort in his panicked haste. He raced towards the beach where he had joined her to fish only to find her boat pulled out onto the shore, its sail set up and ready to go. The sight of it sent a chill through his bones. Was she leaving? Was she leaving him already?

No.

No, not this time. He wasn’t going to let doubt or self-hatred poison something until he learned what was truly going on. Fjord searched throughout the island, checking every crevice and calling out her name as loud as he could. With sparse trees and no caves, there was little chance someone could hide on the little island. But there was no sign of Ardnava.

He was alone once again.

Unable to think of anything else to do, he made his way back to the cabin. His bare feet, sore and bruised from the stones he walked on, were nothing compared to what he felt in his heart. As he entered the cabin, he realized that perhaps he should have taken more time to look around the room before darting through the open door, as there were some surprises waiting for him.

On the couch where Ardnava had slept was laid out a suit of chain mail, a finely forged set made of green steel. Even at a first glance, he could see the armor was tailor-made for him. Resting on the floor beside it were a shield that bore three, waving lines, and next to it was an impressive mace. There was an assortment of other items, including a backpack, bedroll, rations, rope, torches, and waterskin. On the stand next to the couch was a piece of cloth, tightly wrapped around an object. Fjord unfurled it, hoping for a note of explanation. He found that, only in a more captivating and unusual form.

Within the cloth was wrapped a circular, golden amulet attached to an iron chain. On one side it depicted the same three lines on his shield, and on the other was a figure walking towards a rising sun, her long hair merging with the road behind her. As Fjord gently ran his thumb over the woman in gold, a familiar voice came from inside him.

_Change is inevitable. There are those who fear change, and there are those who can ensure that such changes are for the better. Wherever you go, fight for your freedom. Inspire fear in the hearts of tyrants and courage in the hearts of the oppressed. Take hold of your fate, sailor. To do so is to have the Changebringer behind you._

Despite the million questions racing through his head and the cold wind coming through the door, Fjord could not help but feel good. Safe, even. A warm, almost magical sensation began to rise in his chest, making Fjord feel stronger than he ever had before. For the first time in so long, he felt like he really could face the world and whatever it had to throw at him. Though he was alone, he did not feel alone.

By noon, Fjord was out on the open sea, his new armor, weapons, and supplies beside him, the amulet hanging around his neck. The salty wind blowing through his hair brought back good memories instead of bad. He felt right at home on the water, his firm hands pulling the sails to take him east with the wind. Though he knew where his boat would land within a few days time, he did not know what those days had in store for him, nor did he fear whatever was to come.

 _Good luck_ , _Fjord_ , he heard in the wind blowing his sails towards the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s certainly been interesting watching Fjord’s development into a paladin while I developed this series/AU over the past two/three months. In some ways, I feel a little psychic.
> 
> I chose cleric for Fjord because I wanted him to retain magic. In a similar situation to Caleb the Warlock, the moment I said "Fjord the Cleric," it just clicked into the right place. It retains a physical edge while giving Fjord someone who can give him the magical and emotional validation that he desperately needs.
> 
> Originally, Fjord’s cleric patron was going to be the Moonweaver. But as I read about the Changebringer, more and more about her appealed to me. So, I switched to her after writing less than a page with the Moonweaver.
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> A.F.S.M.A.S.


	5. Jester the Rogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester Lavorre makes a new friend that her mother certainly wouldn’t approve of.

“Why do they call you Drift?” she asked, biting into one of the strawberry scones that the friendly stranger had brought her.

“Well, there are a couple of different reasons,” came the reply. “I tend to move around a lot, never staying in one place for too long. Guess it’s natural that most would start calling me Drift.”

Jester hung onto every word coming out of Drift’s mouth. It was impossible not to, for she had never met anyone like her. Drift was a fire genasi, tall and toned in maroon leather armor. Her carnelian skin had a scar here and there, making her look both dangerous and alluring. The beetle-shaped emerald attached to the silver chain around her neck added to her elegance. She spoke with a deep, somewhat raspy voice with an accent that Jester couldn’t place. Her head was bald on the sides, and in the middle she styled her dark orange hair into a series of spikes. Jester had never seen such a hairstyle before and was eager to touch it almost immediately after meeting her, which Drift had allowed provided she was gentle.

“What was your name before Drift?” asked the excitedly inquisitive tiefling.

“Ooh, Ms. Lavorre, such a personal question. Do you always chat girls up this way?”

Jester giggled. Drift’s cool confidence, her charisma, and her striking appearance reminded her so much of the heroes in her books, especially the books where the heroines fell in love with dashing outlaws who would sneak into the villain’s lair, take back stolen treasures, and use their swords to cut off women’s dresses. Drift had even snuck up on her like those characters did. One moment, Jester was minding her own business, drawing a series of lewd illustrations on the roof of the Lavish Chateau, and the next she heard a, “Hey,” from behind. Jester regretted reacting with a frightened shout, but Drift had been quick to assuage the situation, and even quicker to get into Jester’s good graces with her charm and gift of fresh scones. “I’ve never talked to anyone like you,” she admitted.

“There aren’t a whole lot of people like me. Especially in this town.”

“Have you been in Nicodranas long?”

“Eh, not that long. Only a month and a half. It’s a beautiful city, though.”

“What brought you here?”

Drift raised an eyebrow. The smirk on her face sent goosebumps through Jester’s body. “Can you keep a secret, Jester?”

She nodded, moving closer to listen. Drift leaned towards her, whispering, “I’m a criminal on the run.”

Jester gasped. Drift was already cool, and now she was even fucking cooler! “Who are you running from? Are they bad? What did you do? Did you steal something? Did you kill anyone?”

Drift tilted her head, surprised at just how innocently blunt Jester had asked that last question. “No, Jester. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“So what did you do?”

“I guess you could say I decided to pull a prank. In the process, I made someone with power look a little too foolish.”

Jester wanted all of the details, but Drift interrupted before she could ask. “Anyway, enough about me,” she said, fishing out a scone from the bag for the first time since she arrived. “Tell me about you.”

Jester’s eyebrows rose. “Me? I’ve never done anything as cool as being an outlaw or pranking someone so bad that they’d chase me.”

“I find that hard to believe. Your mother is the Ruby of the Sea. People sing far and wide of her beauty.”

“She is pretty great,” Jester agreed, swallowing her scone in a huge bite before going for another one.

“Must be tough sometimes, though. What with having such a famous mother,” said Drift, taking a bite of her scone.

“I wouldn’t say tough. The only real bad parts are… well...”

A moment of silence hung in the air. “I understand,” Drift replied, waving her hand in a pacifying, almost apologetic motion. “You probably only talk about stuff like that with close friends.”

Jester looked away, making a sort of mumbling sound of agreement that didn’t have any confidence.

“You do have friends that you talk to about your feelings, right?” Drift inquired.

“Sure! I’ve got friends! I’ve got Bluud, he’s great! And Nadine… helps my mama a lot. And Tyral is…”

There was just a second too long of silent contemplation before Drift responded. “You mean the minotaur bodyguard, the human servant, and the bellhop? Nobody your own age?”

Jester looked away, her shoulders slouched, and the giddy shaking she felt throughout her body since meeting Drift began to still. Jester… had to admit that she didn’t know anyone her own age to talk to about such matters. She had never known anyone her own age. She was her mama’s secret little sapphire after all. And Jester would never tell her mama about feeling lonely or isolated. Talk like that would only make her mama feel bad, and that was a nightmare scenario that Jester would avoid at all costs.

_Wait a second_ , Jester thought, beginning to wonder how Drift had put all this information together. No one had seen her, or any fire genasi for that matter, in or around the Lavish Chateau. Jester didn’t know much about genasi, but she knew they were rare enough to turn a few heads wherever they went. And how did Drift know she was on the roof? How did she know about her love of pastries? And how did-

“Well, no matter,” Drift spoke up, interrupting her cart of thought. “You got a friend with two good ears right here.”

“We’re friends?” Jester asked, surprised.

“Well,” Drift said, tossing over another scone, “I’ve brought you pastries, I’ve made you laugh, and I even shared a secret with you. What else would you call us, Jester?”

Jester smiled, and had to try her best to refrain from doing or saying something embarrassing in front of Drift. “Friends.”

“So, is there anything you wanna get off your chest?”

“Some of my mama’s customers are… well, they’re not the best.”

“Oh? Are they rude to her?”

Jester shook her head. “Most people love my mama! But sometimes she gets people who pay a lot to spend private time with her, and sometimes those people annoy her. And then there are people who are so boring!”

“That’s rough, Jester. Anyone in particular bore her lately?”

“There was some human man in here a few days ago. Mama doesn’t know it, but I can overhear what she says with her clients if I’m sneaky, and this human guy would not shut up about himself! No matter how many hints mama dropped, he just kept rambling on! I wanted to come out of hiding just to smack him!”

Drift tilted her head, scratching her chin. “That pompous blueblood wouldn’t happen to be named Tubra Obrusqer, would he?”

“Lord Tuba! That was it!”

Drift laughed. “Lord Tuba! That’s a good one.” 

“How do you know him?” Jester asked.

“That Lord Tuba is one of the jerks who has in it for me. He’s here in town with business for the marquis.”

Jester’s face scrunched up. _That jerk bored mama and chased Drift!?_ “I hope a bird poops on his head and makes him look stupid in front of everybody!”

Drift chuckled for a moment, then looked away and covered her mouth with her hand. She had a certain way of controlling her expressions, but Jester could tell that the genasi was thinking something over. It reminded her of the way her mama acted around certain clients. “Can you tell me what you’re thinking about?” Jester asked.

Drift slowly looked back at her with eyes so beautiful that Jester could lose herself in. “I’m thinking… I’m thinking of asking you something, Jester.”

Jester’s blue cheeks suddenly turned red. _Are you… are you gonna ask me out, Drift?_ Jester had never been asked out by another woman before. Actually, no one had ever asked her on a date before. Her only experiences with romance were in the books she read, and only a handful she owned were about women falling in love with women. “W-w-what do you-what do you want w-wanna ask me-me?” she asked, a frog planted firmly in her throat.

Drift leaned in, her full, beautiful, red lips still curled into a smirk. Jester could feel her heart pounding quickly in her chest, and her brain suddenly forgot how to breathe. _Oh my gods. Is she going to kiss me?_ They had only just met. Kissing Drift didn’t sound like a bad idea. But it was still so soon, so sudden, so-

“You wanna help me pull off a prank?” Drift asked.

Jester blinked. “Oh! Oh, sure. I’d love to prank someone with you.”

“A couple of my friends and I were planning on paying Lord Tubra a visit tonight. It would be good with just the three of us, but with someone like you along, Jester, it could be legendary.”

Jester’s smile curled with devilish pride. “I am a creative genius the likes of which this world has never seen.”

Drift filled the gap between them with an open hand. “Are you in, Jester?”

Jester slammed her hand into Drift’s, shaking it enthusiastically. “I’m in!”

“Excellent. Now, here’s how this is gonna go down.”

Jester did exactly as she was told, which mainly involved pretending nothing was out of the ordinary throughout the rest of the day. When she and mama sat down for supper, Jester chose every word carefully so as not to arouse an ounce of suspicion. Midnight came and left, and Jester was on her way to the rendezvous point. It had been no small feat to slip past Bluud, but Jester had her ways of being sneaky. Granted, Bluud had been left half-dead to the world around him from a bad cold he had only recently started to recover from, but his minotaur ears were still sharp enough to make Jester paranoid.

Outside, Jester ran from the Chateau towards the chosen destination, a nearby shop that sold bear claws. A sharp ‘psst!’ sound came from her left. She looked around to a nearby alley and saw the waiting Drift. Jester darted towards her, practically skipping with anticipation.

“Right on time, Jester,” Drift said, earning a pleased giggle from Jester. “You ready to...” She paused, doing a double-take at Jester’s outfit. “Jester, I told you to wear black!”

“These are the darkest clothes I own,” Jester insisted.

“They have flowers on them!” Drift whispered-screamed.

“Dark blue flowers!”

Drift opened her mouth to say something else, but lost the words in a frustrated groan. “Never mind, it’ll have to do. Come on.”

Drift led her down a series of alleyways. They walked for so long and took so many turns that Jester didn’t recognize where they were, though she was reasonably certain that they hadn’t left the Opal Archways district. Jester had never known just how unnervingly quiet Nicodranas was at night, her darkvision bringing her little comfort. She wished she could at least see the stars or Catha, but the sky was nothing but clouds. After walking for what felt to Jester like an hour but was in reality less than half of one, the pair came to the side of a small shop. Waiting for them were two more people: a tiefling man and an elven woman, both in black leather armor with their hoods drawn up. “Guys, this is Jester,” Drift introduced her. “She’ll be joining us for tonight.”

Drift’s friends looked her up and down, confused and unimpressed. “She’s in a dress,” pointed out the tiefling.

“I’ve got pants on underneath,” Jester protested, raising her skirt high enough for them to see.

The pair, each with an eyebrow raised, looked at Drift. “Guys, we talked about this. Jester is cool,” Drift assured them. “She’s perfect for tonight’s little rendezvous.”

Jester folded her arms and raised her chin, confidently presenting herself to the two doubters. Out of the corner of her eye she looked up and spotted Drift winking at her friends. No doubt it was a sign of assurance to the two that she was indeed cool, Jester reasoned. Drift wouldn’t have brought her out here just to have a couple of her friends make fun of her outfit.

The elf sighed. “Fine, whatever. Does she know what she’s supposed to do?”

“You bet your ass I do!”

The three of them shushed her and started towards Lord Obrusqer’s manse. What followed was an additional, exceedingly long amount of walking. Jester had no idea where the hell she was. Her attempts to alleviate her nervousness in the quiet dark were shot down when Drift’s elven and tiefling friends, named Tu’va and Bezz, brushed off her attempts to question them on how they knew Drift, if they were from Nicodranas, and everything else she wanted to know. _Well, you two are boring_.

“Don’t take it personally, Jester,” Drift said. “They like to focus ahead of time.”

Finally, the four were in sight of the manse where Tubra Obrusqer of the Clovis Concord was residing. The tower, nearly twice as large as the Lavish Chateau, was cut from the same garish architectural cloth as the nearby marquis’ demesne, though on a smaller scale. As usual, a group of zolezzo kept vigil at the building’s entrance and patrolled the perimeter.

“Gather round,” Drift ordered, stepping back into the alley behind them. The four formed a close circle, and with a wave of her hand and a flash from her jeweled necklace Drift covered them in a magical energy that changed their forms. Drift and Tu’va were transformed into ordinary humans, still dressed in their real clothes. Bezz was made to look like an elf, refined from head to toe in a suit that made him seem like a soldier in an army. The saber at his side was the only weapon in the group that remained visible. Jester herself was made into a human woman in her late twenties with pale, freckled skin, thick glasses covering her green eyes, and brown hair neatly held back in a bun. Her dark dress, pants, and boots were transformed into an ankle length gown that was fancy enough for a woman of high birth while also resembling something that could be worn for a late night walk.

Jester began to squee, shaking with uncontrollable excitement. “Your magic is cool!”

“Quiet!” Tu’va and Bezz whisper-screamed in unison.

“Can you teach me some spells!?”

“Jester,” Drift replied, putting a hand on her shoulder, “if tonight goes as planned, I’ll teach you every spell in the book.”

“I could do so many amazing things with magic!”

“I’m sure you could, but you need to focus now. Remember: the spell only makes you look different. If someone pats your head or back, they’ll feel your horns and tail. And it doesn’t change your voice, so that part is up to you. Got it?”

“Yep!”

“Give him these,” she continued, handing Jester a sealed envelope and a small box wrapped with a ribbon, “and do and say everything you can to convince him that this is all on the up and up.”

“Up and up,” Jester repeated.

“And if something goes wrong, whistle like a whippoorwill bird.”

“You got it,” Jester said, giving her two thumbs up.

Drift did the same before joining Tuva, who disappeared together into a side street. Jester and Bezz circled back to the main road, walking up to make them seem more legitimate. As the pair got closer and closer, Jester leaned over to Bezz and whispered, “Hey, Bezz.”

“Not now. We’re almost there,” Bezz rasped.

“But I have something important to ask you.”

“What?”

“What’s a whippoorwill bird and what does it sound like?”

Bezz nearly tripped on his own two feet. He looked down at her, mouth agape in astonished horror. “You don’t know what a-”

“Halt,” the zolezzo exclaimed. “What business have you for Lord Obrusqer?”

Jester stepped forward and cleared her throat, prepping her upper class human voice. “I am Shirleen Fancypants. I come bearing a message and package from the Ruby of the Sea for his lordship, Lord Tubra Obrusqer of Gwaran.”

The zolezzo paused, glancing at each other, perplexed. “At this late hour?” one of them asked.

“Do be so kind as to inform him of my arrival so that I might carry out the task Madame Lavorre has set out for me.”

“Miss… Fancypants, it’s late,” the second zolezzo sighed. “Can’t this wait until morning?”

“Sir,” Jester said, doing her best to portray calm and dignified, “I am here on the express command of my employer. I am to convey these tidings directly to Lord Obrusqer. I understand that this is a strange circumstance, but I must carry out my assignment. Please go inform Lord Obrusqer.”

The two looked at each other until one gave in and went inside. Jester, Bezz, and the second zolezzo were left alone for a moment in the awkward silence of the night. A moment later, they heard a great deal of muffled shouting coming from one of the upper floors. Then silence, which continued until the first zolezzo returned a few moments later. Not even bothering to hide his annoyed expression, he groaned, “Lord Obrusqer will see you in his chamber on the fourth floor.”

Jester stepped inside while Bezz was stopped by the other zolezzo. “Sir, I’ll need to take that,” he said, pointing at Bezz’s saber.

“Of course, sir,” Bezz replied in his own fake, posh tone, detaching the whole scabbard and belt and handing them to the zolezzo.

The pair were let into the main hall and guided up an obnoxiously long stairway. The floor was paved with what seemed to pass for polished marble and covered in silk rugs from Zadash. Paintings detailing events from Nicodranas’ history hung on every wall. Candles held in transparent, white bowls attached to golden sconces illuminated their path. _Pfft!_ Jester thought of it all. _Lord Tuba’s little manse has nothing on the Chateau_.

On the fourth floor, down a narrow hallway, the two came to an oaken door that was abruptly shoved open by the pompous noble. Tubra Obrsuqer was a human man in his late forties with pale skin and dark hair. Exceedingly tall with willowy limbs and a gaunt frame, he was dressed in a white nightgown with purple stripes running from neck to ankle. His most distinguishing feature was the pair of extremely prominent cheekbones that jutted out from his face, giving his eyes a sunken appearance. Jester could not tell if his cheekbones were twice the size of an ordinary human’s, or if he had been born with an extra set.

“Do come in!” he said, opening the door wider and ushering her in with his free arm. As she entered, he spied Bezz for the first time. “And who are you?” he asked of the tiefling in elven clothing.

Bezz opened his mouth, but not fast enough for Jester to speak for him. “This is my escort, Mr. Nathaniel Bezzington,” she lied.

Obrusqer blinked, staring at Bezz incredulously. “Of the Port Damali Bezzingtons?”

Bezz was silent for a second. “A distant relation, I’m afraid.”

Obrusqer scoffed, “Not even Ruadis would get you a long enough distance.”

Obrusqer closed the door in Bezz’s face, but not before Jester saw the dirty look he shot at her. Tuba’s room was large enough for a man of his station, with all the pomp and frivolities that came along with it. A balcony behind glass doors and silk curtains jutted out from the head of the room. He directed her to a set of chairs placed by a lit fireplace. “I must say, madame, this is most unorthodox, but if you bring good tidings, I shall overlook the breach in decorum.”

“Well,” Jester said, her voice straining under the weight of just how much she did not want to talk to this guy about her mother, “my lady was quite insistent that this get to you as soon as possible.”

Lord Tubra snatched the letter and box from her hands as soon she produced them. As he read, he made a tittering sound as he squirmed with delight in his seat. Jester did her best to control her expressions, but all the while she thought, _Come on! There’s no way you’d think that any of this was true_. _There’s no way the Ruby of the Sea would ever go for someone like you_.

He all but ripped apart the wrapping on the box, pulling out a small, silver ring with a yellow gem at its center. Lord Tuba slipped it onto a long, bony finger and took a moment to admire it. At this point, Jester was certain that he had forgotten that anyone else was in the room. That, or he didn’t care. She had been uneasy with involving her mother’s name and business affairs in their prank, but Drift brushed it off. _“Everyone in town knows he’s been bragging about his visits to the Chateau. If people investigate, they’ll just assume someone was exploiting the gossip for a window of opportunity. No one’s going to suspect your mama, Jester.”_ As the pit of uneasiness in her stomach deepened, Jester hoped Drift would be right in the end.

Suddenly, there was a knock from the floor above. Obrusqer’s mood snapped from elation to a growling irritation. “What the devil are those fools doing upstairs!? I told them to keep their patrols outside and to the ground floor!” His gritted teeth slowly smoothed back into an uneasy grin as he turned his attention back to her. “Miss, if you would be so kind as to wait here a moment while I check on whatever that sound was.”

“Of course,” Jester assured.

Obrusqer quickly made his way out the door. Jester waited just long enough that he wouldn’t hear her footsteps, then ran in the same direction. “Bezz!” she whisper-shouted. “Are you still there?” She opened the door and saw no sign of the tiefling in disguise. Jester ran to the balcony, peering up to the fifth floor. She knew she could whistle pretty well, but she suddenly became worried that a normal whistle might be misinterpreted. Maybe Drift and her friends would think someone else was just whistling at 1 in the morning. She couldn’t whistle like any bird she was familiar with, as the others might think it was a real bird. With danger closing in, Jester yelled out in her best bird voice, “Whippoorwill! Whippoorwill! Whippoorwill!”

A moment later, Tu’va’s humanized head popped out from the balcony upstairs. “What the hell is it!?”

“Lord Tuba’s coming upstairs! Right now!” Jester replied.

“Shit!” she cursed before disappearing from view. Another moment passed, and Jester heard the noise of shouting, followed by a single, ear-piercing scream. Below, zolezzo started shouting among themselves, storming into the manse. Whatever had happened must have been bad, so she barreled out of Obrusqer’s room and ran up the stairs, the sound of the encroaching guards filling the air around her.

Inside the room on the top floor, she found Bezz working away at a safe with metal tools. Drift and Tu’va stood over Lord Tubra, who was laid out on his back, his body paralyzed in frozen fear, eyes wide and unmoving, mouth agape in a still, silent scream. The jewel and carvings on the ring she had just given him were glowing. The ring itself had seemingly shrunk, gripping his thin finger like a vice.

“Is… is he dead?” Jester asked, her voice low. This had never been part of the plan. Drift never said the ring was magic, nor that it would turn Tuba into the creepiest statue she’d ever seen. If this is what Drift called a prank, it wasn’t a funny one.

“No,” Tu’va said, “but we’ll be when those guards burst in here.”

“Bezz,” Drift growled through gritted teeth.

“It’s not my fault Tu’va screwed this lock up!” Bezz countered. “I’m working as fast as I can!”

As Drift looked back and forth from Bezz and Tu’va, eyes burning with an anger that Jester did not expect from her, an idea came to Jester. “Can you make me look like Lord Tuba?”

Drift turned to her, still fuming. “What!?”

“Just do it quick!”

Drift let out an exasperated sigh before casting her spell again, changing Jester’s image into that of Obrusqer. The Tubra-fied Jester ran back to the door, closed it until just her head was sticking out, and yelled out in her best impression, “Zolezzo! Stop! Don’t come up here!”

“My lord,” a zolezzo called back, close enough to be half-way up the last set of stairs, “what was that noise?”

“It was nothing! Nothing at all! Had a slight mishap but everything’s fine now. It’s fine. ...how are you?”

“......sir, we’re coming up,” came the response, soon followed by a head peeking into view up the stairs.

“Wait just a minute!” she exclaimed, slamming the door. Darting back to the real Obrusqer, Jester ripped off his pajamas, ignoring his pale, bony frame and smallclothes, along with the “What the hell are you doing!?” looks she was receiving from the others. Back at the door, carefully hiding her pajama-clad form, Jester chucked the torn night clothes at the guard emerging at the top of the stairs. “The human woman and I are having sex! Unless you want to see my pale, naked ass, don’t come up!”

“Sorry, sir!” the zolezzo screamed. “We’ll uh-we’ll leave you to it!”

Jester remained in the doorway until the sound of their retreating steps faded. She breathed a short sight of relief and turned back to her friends. Drift had covered her mouth to stifle the sound of her laughter. The look on Tu’va’s face was somewhere between dumbfounded and something approaching respect. Bezz, now holding three small sacks containing whatever was in the safe, even had half of a smile on his face.

“How was that?” Jester asked, waltzing up to Drift, hoping for approval.

“That was… one hell of an improvisation, Jes. Well done. In fact,” Drift said, eyeing the frozen Obrusqer. “Grab Lord Tuba, Jester. I’ve got an idea.”

Jester helped Drift take Tuba to the balcony, standing him upright. Just as Bezz and Tu’va joined them, Drift told her to remove his ring. Only a few seconds afterwards, he snapped back to movement, taking in a huge gulp of air. He almost said something, but his words were lost in flabbergasted stammering at his situation. Needless to say, he was beyond befuddled to see another version of himself in front of him, and to find that he was nearly naked. With a smile, Drift put a hand to his chest. A flash of purple energy erupted from her necklace, traveled to her hand, and covered Lord Tuba. With a gentle push, Drift sent him into the air, floating away weightlessly and helplessly. As he began to shout and scream for the zolezzo below, Jester shouted back at him in her real, laughter-filled voice, “And the Ruby of the Sea had nothing to with this, bumble-fuck! That letter was fake, and we played you for a fool, sucker!”

“Okay, that’s enough, Jester,” Drift said, putting her hand on Jester’s back. “Time to go.”

Before Jester could get out so much as a “What?” Drift shouted, “Jump!” and pulled her into a leap from the railing. Just as gravity began to take old of the four, Drift pulled out a small feather, which glowed brightly as it was devoured by the spell. The white light broke into four pieces, striking each of them in the chest. Suddenly, their falls slowed to a gentle descent.

“Drift, you’re amazing,” Jester whispered, but received no response.

As soon as their feet touched the pavement the quartet bolted as fast as they could away from the manse. The sounds of other zolezzo from the neighboring streets began to swell around them as they barreled down the nearest side street. “Split up!” Drift ordered. Bezz and Tu’va went their own ways, but Jester didn’t leave Drift’s side. “Jester, go your own way!”

“I still look like Tuba!” Jester countered. “And I have no idea where we are!”

“You’ll be fine,” Drift snarled, smacking her in the chest and dispelling the illusion, “now go!”

A T-shaped alley separated the two as Drift took the right and the panicked Jester dove down the left. She took so many twists and turns through the dark streets that she was confusing herself as much as any pursuer. Occasionally she would hear the distant sound of the incensed zolezzo, but thank her lucky stars she never bumped into them. Eventually, she simply could not run anymore, slowing down to a panting halt in a shadowy little spot where two alleys met at a perpendicular angle. Jester slumped against the wall of an alcove and skidded to the ground, not caring for the dirt and dust she was getting on her clothes. Her heart was beating a mile a minute. With every exhausted breath she worried that a zolezzo was going to spring out of nowhere and find her in her little hiding spot. _This wasn’t how you said this night would go, Drift_.

As if on queue, Drift burst into view, though she did not see Jester. Drift had reverted back to her true form, and, to Jester’s horror, a crossbow bolt was sticking out of her back. The wounded and worn out genasi slowed to a stop across the alley from her, flattening herself as best she could against the wall. The sound of many footsteps closed in on them. Before Jester’s eyes, Drift’s body slowly disappeared. _Of course she can turn invisible_ , Jester thought until her darkvision dashed her optimism. She could see the blood dripping from Drift’s wound to the ground. Drift’s hiding spot wasn’t as good as her own. If the guards spotted the blood, if any had vision like hers, Drift was done for. As a trio of zolezzo stepped into view, Jester was overcome with the urge to do something, anything, to save Drift. Almost on instinct, Jester rushed out of her hiding spot shouting, “Guards! Guards!”

The zolezzo stopped in their tracks, only feet away from Drift’s location, eyes fixed on her.

“He went that way!” Jester said, pointing down the street that led away from Drift’s hiding spot.

The zolezzo exchanged a brief glance with one another. “Wait, I thought I saw a woman,” one of them said.

Jester shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Some guy carrying a bag shoved me to the ground as he ran past. See how he messed up my dress!? He was really rude! And he was wearing really garish armor that didn’t match his pants or skin tone at all.”

The guards looked at one another, unsure of this new information and hoping one among them would put it all together. Then, one zolezzo furrowed his brow as he looked Jester closely in the eye. “Miss, what are you doing in this alley so late at night?”

_Shit_ . “I…” _Come on, Jester. You’ve been lying all night. Come up with something!_ “I…” _What the hell can I say to..._ Jester unleashed a torrent of crocodile tears, covering her face with her hands. “I was going to meet my boyfriend tonight,” she sputtered, trying her best to sound forlorn, “but when I got there, he… he was with another woman!”

The guards, none of them with too much experience or brains between them, began to tear up with her.

“Miss, I’m so sorry,” said the first zolezzo.

“There, there, love. Everything’s going to be alright,” assured the second.

“Any man like that doesn’t deserve you, miss,” swore the third.

“Thank you, guys. You’re very nice,” Jester said, wiping away her fake tears. “I hope you guys catch that man you were chasing.”

The guards blinked.

“Oh, shit! I forgot about that!”

“After him! He can’t have gotten too far!”

“Miss, please get home safe, and I hope that good for nothing man of yours gets whats coming to him!”

The second they were out of sight, Jester looked back to where the invisible Drift had been hiding, but saw no dripping blood. “Thank you, Jester,” said a familiar voice, grateful but tired. She heard the sound of invisible feet running away, and once again Jester was alone.

With no other sight or sound from Drift, Bezz, or Tu’va, Jester followed the original plan and made her way back home. Sneaking back in past Bluud was not easy. She had to kick over a crate outside their back door to get him away from the front door long enough for her to get in and race up the stairs to her bedroom. When morning came, Jester did her best to hide how tired she was from her mother’s watchful eye at breakfast. As the two ate, Jester hid her yawns in her tea cup. News of last night’s escapade had already spread, as it was the only thing Marion would speak of. Apparently, a bunch of thieves had taken several treasures from Lord Tuba and cursed him with a strange spell. He had been left floating in the air for hours until a local mage was bribed by the marquis into finally dispelling the enchantment that had kept Tuba afloat. Obrusqer had left the city shortly after, a fact of which Marion was grateful to know. When she asked why Jester seemed so amused at the story, the little sapphire replied, “Oh, no reason, mama.”

After the chaos of the previous night, Jester found little comfort in her normal routine. She was so tired that none of her usual hobbies made her happy, and so antsy that she couldn’t sleep. She tried reading one of her books, but couldn’t get more than a few sentences in before her mild trailed off. She tried drawing something, but no inspiration came to her. Drift did say to lay low. _How low do I have to lie_ , Jester wondered. _How long was someone who had participated in a prank-turned-robbery supposed to wait? I hope everything’s okay. What if Drift got caught? Were Bezz and Tu’va also injured? What if-_

Her cascading anxieties were cut short by a knocking at her window. Jester almost gasped in joy at the sight of Drift, but the fire genasi was quick enough to put a finger over her mouth to shush her. Jester darted up to the roof, and threw her arms around Drift the moment she was in front of her.

“You did great last night, Jessie,” Drift said, sending Jester into a fit of giggles. “And, true to my word,” she added, producing a small pouch from her jacket, “here’s your cut of last night’s take.”

It was strange for Jester, having money that didn’t come from her mama. As she shook the bag, hearing the coins jingle against one another, the feeling turned to delight. “That was so much fun!” she exclaimed.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” Drift replied. “Tu’va and Bezz were pretty nervous about bringing in someone they didn’t know. They didn’t think you could handle the job, but I vouched for you. You proved them wrong.”

“Hell yeah I did!”

“And you weren’t scared for a moment, were you?”

In the back of her head, Jester thought of the quiet moments that went on too long, the look on Obrusqer’s face when the ring had cursed him, running through Nicodranas at night with guards hunting her, and that agonizing moment that the zolezzo almost saw through her lie. “Nope.”

Drift tapped her shoulder with a finger. “Ask me what I’m thinking, Jester.”

“What are you thinking, Drift?”

“Well, Jester, now that you mention it, I’m thinking we could be quite a pair, you and I. I’ve got plenty of friends, but none with half your creativity and enthusiasm.”

“I am a paragon of both.”

“Jester,” Drift said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I want to teach you how to be a rogue.”

“Who else are we going to prank!?”

Drift held up a hand to calm her down. “Love the energy, but hold the horses. There’s one little caveat. If you want to get in with me in this business, you’re going to have to learn the tricks of the trade.”

Jester furrowed her brow in confusion. “I thought you said I was great.”

“You are, but every master starts their career with an education, and that means learning things like how to be stealthy.”

“I’m plenty stealthy!”

“You also need to know how to pick locks and look out for traps,” Drift continued.

She shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

“And learn how to speak Thieves’ Cant.”

Jester tilted her head. “Thieves can’t do what?”

Drift looked at her for a moment, speechless. “And last, but certainly not least,” she continued, pulling out a knife from her belt, “you gotta learn how to properly use one of these.”

Jester’s eyes widened at the sight of the weapon. She had never used a knife outside of a kitchen or using one to carved a dick into wood. Drift must have noticed the look on her face. “It’s a rough world we live, Jester. A smart person makes sure they know how to defend themselves, their people, and what they have.”

“That… that makes sense,” Jester supposed.

“Imagine if some assholes tried to break into your house to steal your shit or hurt you and your mom. Sure, you got that big minotaur, but what if there’s more of them than he can handle? Wouldn’t you want to back him up? Wouldn’t you rather be able to fight back and defend what’s yours instead of running away?”

“...yeah. Yeah, I would like to be able to fight back.”

Drift smiled. “What do you say, Jes?” she asked, twisting the knife around and offering her the handle. “Will you be my partner in crime?”

Jester hesitated only for a moment, then smiled and took the knife.

“Very good,” Drift said, oozing sly confidence. With a flick of her wrists a pair of daggers appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. “I’ll come back for you tonight. I’ve got a little spot near the wharf that’ll be perfect for us. Tonight, I’m gonna start teaching you how to use these.”

Jester, both intimidated by Drift’ prowess and thrilled at the opportunity, giggled as she said, “Dagger, dagger, dagger!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA, Jester gets a morally questionable crime gf and has a bi awakening.
> 
> Depriving Jester of the Traveler did make me feel mean at times while writing this. Even though I don’t fully trust him, or if he ends up being a bad guy, I can’t deny just how much comfort he brought to a little blue girl who needed a friend.
> 
> I thank you all for your patience. Only two more to go.


	6. Beauregard the Barbarian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beauregard Lionett always had a temper, and a justified one at that. Her parents had always tried to force her to suppress that anger. But as a god once said, angry gets shit done, and Beau meets someone who shows her that wisdom firsthand.

“That all you got?” she asked, wiping away the blood oozing from her lip with her thumb. The half-orc who had given her that bloody lip fumed at her again, letting out a growl. He probably expected her to go down with that one hit, but she wasn’t going to give him anything he wanted. His traveling band behind him, a big group mainly consisting of humans, dwarves, orcs, and half-orcs accompanied by mules and carts and all armed to the teeth, were watching them, laughing their asses off at the fight in front of them. Some even started placing wagers on how long she’d last. No one seemed to be betting on her to win.

Their mistake.

Beauregard didn’t know how this shit had escalated to such a degree. She had just managed to slip away from the monks who had kidnapped her with her father’s blessing the night before and came across the caravan of assholes who stood before her on the sunny and shitty morning this had turned into. The road was wide enough for them both, but no. The half-orc who walked at the head of the group insisted that she step aside and wait on the side of the road until they all passed. They had argued for so long that the entirety of the company he led had caught up with them, flooding the road in front of her. Whatever his reason was, it didn’t matter at this point. He was an asshole, he had gone out of his way to be an asshole to her, and he threw the first punch. She didn’t need another reason.

“Come on, asshole,” she said, flexing her shoulders and raising her fists. “Afraid I’ll embarrass you in front of your friends?”

The half-orc let out a thoroughly pissed off snarl as a few of his friends jeered and whistled at him. “That’s it!” he shouted, bolting straight for her. He arched his fist back and brought it forward in what would have been a pretty nasty punch had it landed, but Beau had already sidestepped. Just as he turned his head to her, she kicked at his knee, bringing him half-way to the ground. An elbow to the head sent him the rest of the way down. The satisfaction sweeping over Beau almost made up for the throbbing pain in her elbow from contact with the half-orc’s thick, bony skull.

“Not bad, girl,” a woman in the crowd called out.

“You gonna take that, newbie?” asked another.

Her half-orc opponent slowly raised himself to a knee. Beau took a step away, raising her fists for whatever he was going to do next. When he opened his eyes at her, she saw that his green eyes had turned a glowing red. _What the fuck?_

The half-orc roared, beating his chest as he charged at her again, his form even more feral than before. His fists swung hard and fast, though she was just quick enough to dodge them. That was all she could do as he let out a fiery scream with each attack, filling the world around them with the sound of his fury. Beau could see that this was more than a display. He was out for her blood.

She had kept her knife in its sheath, but now seemed as good a time as any to bring it out. When she drew it, one of the dwarves called out in a mocking voice, “Aw, what’s the matter human? You don’t see Mol drawing his weapon!” She ignored the jackass and kept dancing around. She didn’t have much experience fighting half-orcs, but Tori taught her how to move and how to use a knife. The blade landed at his pec and sliced open a deep cut, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t even seem to recognize the injury. Hell, it was like it didn’t do half the damage it seemed to. All the knife did was make him madder, and he was willing to show it. He let out another furious roar as he swung his arm in a wide arch. When she sidestepped the hit, he immediately stepped forward, slamming his shoulder into her and knocking her back. She didn’t think the dumbass could strategize like that, nor that she’d fall for it. As she stumbled back she thrust the knife blindly into his midsection, but again it seemed half-effective at best. Her fall was ended when he grabbed her at the wrist. She tried but failed to wriggle out of his grip, only for the half-orc to yank her to his chest. Not even stopping to remove the knife lodged in his body, he wrapped his thick arms around her and squeezed her tight, lifting her into the air. As she started kicking her feet in hopes of hitting a shin (or, with luck, his crotch), he squeezed her tightly to his chest, forcing the air out of her lungs.

“You’re pretty squirrely, aren’t you, human?” he asked, squeezing her again even tighter. “You’re awfully bold when you can duck and dive about the place. But you can’t now! What you gonna do now, little squirrel? Huh!? What you gonna do now!?”

 _Fuck!_ She couldn’t land a decent kick, wasn’t strong enough to break his grip, and had lost her grip on her knife. _Godsdammit_ , she cursed herself, seeing no way out of her predicament. Then, one bit of Tori’s advice came back to her. " _You’ve got a thick skull, Beau,”_ she said after one of their less successful but still enjoyable pranks on the Wimsledon brothers ended with the two of them exhausted and bruised in an alley. _“Don’t be afraid to use it.”_

“You wanna-” Beau said to the big, green idiot squeezing her like a rotten tomato, “You wanna know...what I’m gonna do?”

“Yeah,” he said, an angry grin on his face. “I wanna fucking know what you think you’re gonna do to get out of this.”

“You sure you wanna know?”

“Yes! Come on! Show me what you can do!”

“THIS!” she spat out with haggard breath before slamming her forehead into his left eye. Had she landed anywhere else on his head, she’d be the one left stunned with a sore head while the giant ass would have laughed. But she hit exactly where she needed to. The half-orc released her as he stumbled back, letting Beau fall to the ground while he shouted and cursed, covering his eye. His companions let out an, “Ooh!” sound intermixed with their laughter.

“Hold,” came a voice loud enough to pierce the noise of the group, who quickly quieted down. Out from the crowd of assholes came a halfling, stepping towards Beau, still on her knees and catching her breath. She wasn’t even tall by halfling standards. She had black skin, crows feet at the sides of her brown eyes, and a crown of curls that had started to gray. She had no shoes on her feet, which had collected callouses and dirt like a rick drunk collects shitty wine. Only two things made her stand out, other than her unique place in the present company. The first was a nastily impressive scar that ran from her hairline down over her forehead and nose, possibly a memento from a sword or axe to the face that didn’t finish the job. The second was the hooded cloak she wore. The cloak itself was an ordinary, weathered piece of brown leather that covered everything but her face, hands, ankles, and feet, but sewn throughout the cloak were strings attached to dragon teeth. Unlike many collectibles Beau had seen of questionable origin and unimpressive size, these had the shape, color, and size to shut up any doubter. These were from the teeth of fucking adult dragons.

As impressive as she was, Beau wasn’t gonna let her know that. She may have been winded, bruised, and down, but she wasn’t gonna let this asshole intimidate her. “Wanna tag in for your friend?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow and rolling her shoulders back.

Without breaking eye contact with her, the halfling called over to her asshole companions, “Holkurg. How’s Mol?”

The half-orc she’d been fighting, who she guessed was named Mol, was being observed by an orc who wore a stained apron that would befit a surgeon or a butcher. Holkurg pulled her knife out of Mol’s chest and gave his face another look before responding, “His bellyaching to the contrary, Mol’s eye will be fine. It’ll be swollen up for a few days, but he won’t go half-blind.”

“What’s the matter, Mol?” asked a one-eyed human with a stag tattoo on his chest. “Don’t wanna join the club?”

“Fuck you, Brizen,” said Mol, strutting away from Holkurg and the others who were laughing at him and to the side of the halfling. The medic joined him, tossing the knife to the halfling.

“How’s her bladework?” she asked, eyeing the bloody dagger.

“Not bad,” Holkurg shrugged. “If Mol hadn’t been raging, she might’ve been able to actually injure him with that thing.”

 _Raging?_ Beau asked herself, still confused.

A red dragonborn woman, another rarity in the group, stepped out from the crowd. “What do you want us to do with her, chief?”

_This halfling is the leader of all these big assholes?_

Her attention was seized by a sudden growl from Mol, who now loomed over her. His nostrils flared with every irate breath, but all Beau could see was the way he kept a hand over his injured eye. His other eye had returned to its normal green color. “Personally,” she said, deciding to rub proverbial salt in the wound, “I think you’d look better with just one eye. You won’t look good but you would look better.”

Mol gritted his teeth as everyone but the halfling laughed again, but he made no move against her. He turned and looked down at the halfling, asking, “Can I finish her now?”

Beau looked from Mol to the halfling, who hadn’t taken her eyes off of her. “Like what you see?” Beau taunted, refusing to appear weak.

“Maybe I do.” The chief had a look on her face as if she was thinking of something, then a glint in her eyes showed she had arrived at some thought she liked. “Guys,” she said with a raised voice, “go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

The band laughed, as if an inside joke had just been shared, but they did as she said, taking their carts around Beau, Mol, and her. She could hear them talking among themselves, but she was so focused on the two in front of her that she didn’t pay attention. “You too, Mol,” the chief told the injured moron.

Mol wasn’t pleased, but he did not seem angry with the halfling. “If she pisses you off, chief, I’d appreciate you giving me one of her eyes.”

“Just one of her eyes?” she said, looking up at him with a wry smile. “Why not the whole head?”

Mol nodded respectfully. “I keep an eye, you keep the rest of her head. I’ll share some damn good Strongjaw ale with you if you drink it from her skull, chief.”

She laughed. “You know you’re the only one who drinks that imported, Tal’Dorei crap. I’ll keep your request in mind, though. Now go on. Either way this goes, I won’t be long.”

With one last glare and a glob of bloody spit that landed on Beau’s knee, Mol left them to catch up with the others. When the two were alone, Beau took the opportunity to speak first. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Rylee Butcher,” came the response, bold and almost affable.

“Hell of a name for a halfling.”

Butcher shrugged. “Names and titles are important. Get a big enough name and it will arrive wherever you’re going before you will. Make it a good one and everyone you meet will never forget it. And, at the moment, this band will know your name as Little Squirrel, with the title of Eye-Headbutter. Or Eyebutter, which just makes you sound like a fucked up dairy product.”

Beau gritted her teeth behind her frown, pressing her fingers into fists. When she noticed that her obvious anger only made the smirk on Butcher’s face grow wider, it pissed her off more. “You got a better name?” Butcher asked.

“Beauregard.”

“Beauregard,” the halfling repeated. “Kind of a masculine name, don’t you think?”

Beau shrugged it off. “Parents wanted a boy. Wanted to make sure I knew that every day of my life.”

Butcher nodded, seemingly out of sympathy. “Where you from?”

“What’s it to you?”

Butcher chuckled. “You got a big mouth for such a little thing, you know that?”

“You’re one to talk.”

She laughed again. Maybe Beau should’ve become an actor, what with how many laughs she had gotten out of this group of assholes. “Do you know how to really fight, or was that just poorly planned shits and giggles on your part?”

Beau had no formal training, as all her childhood protests to learn any kind of combat were in vain. What little she knew came from Tori and a handful of experiences. The halfling, however, didn’t need to know that. “Ask Mol. He got a decent eyeful of what I can do.”

Rylee Butcher laughed at that with a voice that was bigger than she was. The look of curiosity in her eyes burned brighter, and Beau could tell a new idea had come to her. “I’ll make a wager with you, Little Squirrel,” she said, tossing her knife far to the side towards the trees. In a flash, she produced a shortsword and a hammer and sent them over to join her discarded dagger. She pulled back her hood and shrugged her cloak over her shoulders, showing off her body. Butcher may not have been tall, but fuck.

She.

Was.

Built.

She wore a sleeveless tunic, leaving her strong, scarred arms bare, save for a pair of metallic bracers with words and symbols that Beau did not recognize. Her trousers cut off just below her knee, showing the scars on her legs as well, and were just tight enough that Beau could see the thick musculature of her thighs. Beau had met many halflings in her life, but none so stocky as Rylee Butcher. She didn't know halflings could develop bodies like hers.

“I got a purse of about 69 platinum on my belt,” she continued, “along with a minor healing potion. If you can rip off three of these dragon teeth tied to my cloak, I’ll give them both over to you.”

Beau rose to her feet slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. _Those bracers could be magical_ , she mused, thinking of the sorts of things a halfling would need to do or have in order to command the unquestioned respect of a band as large and fearsome as hers. _Either that or she’s just really fucking well fit_.

Butcher stretched her arms out to the sides. “We got a deal, Little Squirrel Eyebutter?”

Beau was silent for a moment.

Just a moment.

“Deal!” she shouted, launching for the nearest tooth. She grabbed air as Butcher sidestepped. With quick hands the halfling grabbed her at the wrist and shirt. Before Beau could react, Butcher swung her through the air like a rag doll, sending her flying towards where the assholes had originally come from. She landed with a thud, rolling into the dirt.

Beau blinked, just as confused as she was injured by the move. “How the fuck did you do that!?” she asked incredulously.

Butcher shrugged. “Keep trying, human. I’m sure you’ll find out.”

 _Motherfucker!_ Beau got back on her feet and tried to rush her opponent again. She sent a foot outwards to try to kick Butcher in the face. Her opponent responded by moving her head out of the way, grabbing her ankle and pants, and yanking her forward until she lost her balance and fell once more.

“You’re clearly not used to being the big one in a fight,” Butcher observed, an insufferable smile on her face. “Though, I’m under the impression you don’t have that many fights under your belt.”

Beau resumed her assault. She figured if she stayed light on her feet, feigned an attack to get Butcher to commit to a wrong move, then sidestep out of the way and get behind her, she could rip off a fang or two. Problem was that Butcher didn’t fall for a single feint, and any time Beau tried to step around her Butcher would just rotate, always staying face to face. After what felt like a minute of this approach, Beau groaned, still without a tooth and only getting more and more exasperated by the second. _Godsdamit! This asshole is toying with me! These teeth are almost as big as her legs, how can I not grab one!?_

Eventually she threw strategy to the wind and threw a punch at Butcher’s head. The halfling ducked, letting the blow touch nothing but air. She then threw her hands upwards into Beau’s torso, shoving her back. _How is she this fast!?_ Beau thought. Without thinking she copied Mol’s move from earlier, reaching out for her shoulders to hopefully pin her. Butcher responded by grabbing her forearms and pulling her closer. It was in that moment that Beau realized she probably shouldn’t have tried to grapple someone who could toss her around with ease. From the look Butcher was giving her, it was clear Beau was wearing that epiphany on her face.

“It’s not easy to wrestle with someone half your size,” her opponent gloated. “Or thrice your strength for that matter.”

Butcher pushed Beau’s arms out, breaking the weak hold she had on her, right before slamming her small but dragon-crushing fist into Beau’s stomach. With an oof, all of the air in Beau’s lungs was gone, along with her ability to keep standing. She stumbled back a few paces from Butcher before collapsing. _How is she this strong!?_ she wondered, gasping for air on her knees.

“You’ve got no training, and you haven’t done a single day of labor in your life,” Butcher spoke up, giving Beau the 10,000th unwanted lecture of her life. “You’ve got heart, I’ll give you that. But I’ve seen two-legged dogs fight better than you, Little Squirrel.”

And that was one use of that moniker too much for her. Beau shot up, screaming her head off as she dashed straight at Butcher. Just as she motioned to prepare for the oncoming attack, Beau scooped up a fistful of dirt and flung it at her. The dusty dirt clod landed dead center in her smug, scarred face.

 _Yes!_ Beau thought, pressing off of her feet in a lunge straight at Butcher and her dumb coat of teeth. _That shit is mine!_

It wouldn’t be. Beau realized that when Butcher jumped back, forcing Beau to land on the road. As she skidded in the dirt, she shot her eyes back up to meet the gaze of Rylee Butcher, wiping the dirt off her face. When she opened her eyes, Beau saw a flash of red in them.

 _Oh, shit_.

Butcher made a quick step forward, moving over Beau’s head and landing to the side of her torso. Beau tried to get out of the way, but her foot slid in the dirt, resulting in only elevating her chest a few inches off of the ground. Butcher quickly sent her back down with an elbow drop, expelling what little air Beau had regained back out of her lungs. Butcher did not give her a chance to reclaim it. From what Beau could tell by the sudden pressure, Butcher had gotten back to her feet and stomped her foot down onto Beau’s lower back. As Beau flailed her limbs in a desperate attempt to grab a tooth or hit her in any way, Butcher seized her right wrist and left ankle and pulled them as close together as she could without breaking or dislocating anything. Beau couldn’t help but growl in pain at the brutal position that she’d just been forced into. She tried to roll to the side, hoping to send Butcher off balance, but Butcher’s foot pressed harder into her back and her hands pulled the seized limbs tighter, forcing Beau to let out a beleaguered howl.

“Anger is a wonderful thing,” her opponent said, without the humor that tinged her tone up until now, “but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s fucking useless. A weapon you don’t know how to use is a gift wrapped in a bow... no pun intended, for your enemy.” A moment passed, as if she wanted Beau to know this humiliating, painful position for a while longer. It was only after Beau’s futile struggling ended that she spoke again. “You yield?” she asked.

Beau, defeated, dropped her forehead into the dirt and patted the road with her free hand. Butcher released her, bringing instant relief to the strained limbs. Butcher stepped off of her back and walked around to stand in front of her again. “Tell me,” she said, wiping away the last specks of dirt from her face, “you want to lie there moping, or would you like to learn how to actually use that anger bubbling in your gut?”

“What do you fucking care!?” Beau snapped at the woman who had given her the biggest beatdown of her life.

Butcher smiled. “I’ve got an eye for potential, and I’m looking at someone who might make one hell of a barbarian. Your anger is in a good starting place, and I want to see if I can help you develop it into something more substantial.”

That… that quieted Beau down. Everyone had always told her to watch her temper. Don’t curse. Put down that stick. Don’t roll your eyes at me, young lady. Anger was never anything to be proud of. But now this halfling, this stranger, was telling her that her anger was actually a good thing. Not since Tori had Beau met someone who didn’t treat her like she was worthless.

“Here are your options, Beauregard of what’s it to you; you can take the direction you were going before Mol started a fight and go wherever that leads, or you can follow me and see what I and my happy little band can show you.”

Butcher held an open hand in front of Beau. Maybe the halfling was just fucking with her. Maybe this would be a ruse, and Beau would end up doing grunt work for this damn band of hers while being strung along. But between parents who tried shipping her off to be a bunch of monks’ problem, said monks who probably didn’t care that she had run off, the unknown of the path she was on, and the unknown of Butcher’s offer…

“Fuck it,” Beau decided. “Sure.”

“You angry, Little Squirrel?”

“You bet your ass I am,” Beauregard replied, taking Rylee Butcher’s hand.

“Good,” replied Rylee, pulling Beau to her feet. “Stick with me, and I’ll show you to like the rage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Barbarian!  
> Ba ba, barbarian!  
> Ba, barbarian!  
> Ba ba, barbarian!  
> Beau the Barbarian!  
> Tough but a squirt!
> 
> (I couldn’t resist).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. Yasha the Blood Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One spellcaster tries to help another find out the secrets that have plagued her for years.

It had been to Yasha Nydoorin’s luck that she had woken early that morning, though she did not know it yet. Molly’s bed was empty, as it often was when the carnival had stopped near a town or city. As the others slept in their wagons, she stepped outside and sat on a large rock near the camp, cleaning and sharpening her sword in the cool morning breeze. She had been at her task only for a few minutes when Mollymauk Tealeaf emerged from a nearby bush without any sign that he had seen her there. She might have let him be, as she normally did when he tried to sneak back in after a night spent galavanting without her or the others, but the satchel at his side weighed down heavily by its contents caught her attention. “Good morning, Molly,” she called over to him.

He stopped dead in his tracks. “Yasha!” he said, turning to her with a big smile on his face. “Good morning, dear. Did you sleep well?”

“I did,” Yasha replied. “Did you have fun last night?”

“Plenty. Wish you could have been there, but none of them were really you’re type, I’m afraid.”

She nodded, amused. “What’s in the bag?”

“Oh, it’s nothing important,” he responded, unsubtly pulling the bag behind his back.

“Then why do you seem so determined to hide nothing important?”

His smile took on a nervous edge that slowly turned to one of acceptance. Molly looked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone before closing the gap between them and opening the mouth of the satchel. “They’re books.”

“I can see that. Did you steal them?”

“No, but I did manage to negotiate the price down to where it was practically stealing.”

“If they’re just books, why don’t you want the others to know?”

He laughed, closing the bag. “Yasha, I love you, but even you might let something slip. People talk, and you are people.”

Yasha’s lips curled into a half-smile, her brow raised. “Alright, Molly,” she assured him. “I’ll keep your secret.”

“Yasha, you’re a wonderful aasimar being,” he replied, giving her a big showman’s bow at the waist as he stepped away towards the wagon.

“And seeing as you’re so good with secrets,” Yasha continued, “perhaps you can help me out with one of my own.”

Molly turned back to her, mouth agape in an expression that was equally of feigned, overblown stupefaction, and of genuine surprise. “Yasha Nydoorin, are you trying to blackmail me?”

“You once said that only enemies are blackmailed. Friends get ‘called on for an owed favor.’”

His display dropped, defeated. “Doesn’t ring a bell, but that does sound like something I would say.”

“Molly, I just need your help to answer some questions.”

It must have been something in her tone, because it was clear from the way Molly looked at her that he had picked up on the subtext. Everyone had seen his magic, but he was the only one to have ever seen hers.

“If you think you have answers, that is,” she added.

He was silent for just a moment, then said, “Fine. We can talk in our wagon tonight. On one condition.”

“Name it.”

A smile returned to his lips. “Bring two glasses and a bottle of whiskey.”

Yasha nodded. If it would make Molly feel more comfortable, she would gladly drink with him as they spoke. In fact, the alcohol might calm her nerves. She had seized the opportunity to finally approach him about a subject that had been eating away her at her for far too long a time, so whatever would make it easier was welcome to the party.

“Then I’ll see you tonight,” Molly replied, turning back towards the wagon with his secret stache of arcane tomes in tow. “And make sure it’s good whiskey,” he added over his shoulder.

The two played out the rest of the day as if nothing had happened. The carnival picked up its bags and set out, traveling for hours before stopping to let them stretch their legs and let the horses rest. Everyone took the opportunity to work on their act. Bo practiced his drum, Toya sang a tune to Kylre’s amusement, Mona and Yuli talked of what to do next with their climbing. Desmond sat by himself away from the others, drinking while his enchanted violin played above his head. Gustav and Ornna were nowhere to be seen, which could only mean that they had sequestered themselves for another argument. Molly spent much of his free time in their room, only coming out for a breather and to play with his tarot cards. She still found it strange that he hadn’t put together an act for the show. Gustav had approached him on more than one occasion to come up with a routine based on his magic, but he always talked his way out of it. As outgoing and passionate as he was, Molly kept his magic close to his chest.

Yasha could relate to that.

Soon the carnival set out again on the open road. Yasha rode in front, leaving Molly alone in the wagon with his books. She tried to keep their upcoming meeting out of her mind, but to no avail. As dusk fell, one part of Yasha felt that the night did not come fast enough, while the other felt like it came too soon. At dinner she sat apart from Molly, Kylre and Toya separating them. The others did not notice her gloomy demeanor, as it didn’t seem too different to them from how she normally behaved. Molly seemed to be his usual self, conversing and laughing with the others like nothing was out of the ordinary. She wondered if that meant he was in a good mood from whatever he had found in his books, or if he was trying to hide whatever he truly felt.

As dinner wrapped, the pair quietly slipped away from the group and back to their room. “Got the whiskey?” he asked.

Yasha held up the bottle and glasses. “Bo said this was called Courage.”

“That’ll do.”

Inside their wagon she took a seat on her bed next to her sword, pouring both of their first shots while he retrieved a chair and the satchel from underneath his bed. “Quick question before we get into whatever questions you have for me; what exactly do you guys say among yourselves about my magic? I know they’ve gossiped about it since I first came here, but none aside from Gustav and Toya have actually tried to talk to me about it.”

The members of the Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities certainly had a lot to say about the lavender tiefling with the magic powers and silver staff. Before she arrived, Molly had been the latest member. Though she had only been apart of them for little over half a year, she had been privy to conversations that were whispered behind Molly’s back.

“Ornna joked once that you’re the descendant of an overdramatic dragon. Bo suggested that you’re a warlock with some chaos god as your patron. Toya prefers to think you’re actually a fey and that the spell that transported you to the Material Plane caused your memory loss.”

Molly’s eyes widened. He gave the report a silent nod. “Not gonna lie, that actually sounds pretty creative. Unfortunately, none of those are true. I am, technically, a wizard. I have to learn every spell I know, save for a couple that I knew since popping out of that grave. When I’m not using my salary on food or entertainment, I’ve been saving up to acquire more and more magical texts. They are not cheap, and their owners tend not to be willing to trade them for services rendered. Except for last night.”

“So you’re using us for your personal gain?” she said, consciously trying her best to sound playful and fun, like how she heard the others in the carnival talk.

Molly smiled and clicked his tongue. “Use is such a callous word. I prefer to think that, in addition to the fun and money, I also gain a few mystical benefits every now and then.”

“The others like to gossip about the sex parties you go to and the con jobs you pull when we’re not around. Should I tell them that Mollymauk Tealeaf’s private escapades are adventures to libraries and bookstores?”

Molly held a hand to his chest and put on a face of feigned shock. “Yasha Nydoorin, that is not only a breach of our agreement, it is slander of the highest caliber. I’m secretly hitting libraries and bookstores in between various escapades, romps, get-togethers, and shenanigans of all shapes and sizes.” Yasha smiled at that, which made Molly’s smile grow wider. “Please don’t tell the others,” he said before downing his first shot. “It could ruin my whole reputation.”

“We wouldn’t want that.”

“Well, a fake reputation is all a man has.”

She smiled, laughter escaping her throat. This was fun. It was always fun when she and Molly spent time together. But tonight was not about fun. She found out the secret of his magic, now it was his turn to help her find out the secret to her own. “So are you going to show me what you found?” she asked before downing her shot.

Molly put his refilled drink on the table next to them, a small sigh escaping his nostrils. One breath and all of her hopes were dashed to pieces. He pulled out a book, removing the cloth that had covered it, and handed it over, saying, “I bought this a month ago in Zadash. I couldn’t find much in the way of minor details, but I think this will give us something to start with.”

On the tome’s hardened leather cover, printed in gold, was the title, “A Reflection on Magic and Those Who Wield It, by Matthias M. Ercerion.” The book was old, its spine loose, and its pages yellowed. At least twenty years had passed from its printing to entering Molly’s ownership. As she examined the cover, Molly sat down and carefully slipped a finger into the page that held the silk ribbon bookmark, flipping the book open to show her his findings. At the top of the page was a detailed illustration of a human wielding a flaming sword in one hand and emitting a blazing energy from the other. The text read:

_ In a landscape tormented by all manner of beasts, devils, and abominations from beyond the veil, most live in fear of the dark, of superstition, and of the unknown. Some grow hardened by this experience, instead choosing to stand up and fight against the tide of shadow. _

_ These folk are called ‘heroes.’ _

_ Some, however, are so fanatical and bent on destroying the anathema that plagues the countryside that they embrace dark, forbidden knowledge. They sacrifice some of their own vital force in dubious, forgotten blood rituals to better understand their enemies. Their methods sometimes blur the line between themselves and the evils they hunt, calling their own humanity into question. _

_ These folk are called ‘Blood Hunters.’ _

“Blood hunter,” Yasha repeated, taking time on each word to better grasp their weight and meaning. She hated how they felt on her tongue and sounded in her ears. She passed the book back to Molly, adding, “Well, I can’t say I like the idea of embracing ‘dark, forbidden knowledge’ and giving up my vital force.”

Molly gave a sympathetic shrug. “And I don’t like the idea that I have to read to learn my magic, but here we are.”

That did get a good chuckle out of her. Molly always had that skill, able to bring a smile and a laugh out of anybody wherever he went. With the number of rain clouds always pouring on her parade, it was no wonder why she gravitated to him. “Read on for me, please,” she requested. “Give me the short version.”

He obliged. “It says that blood hunters gain their magic through a ritual in which they drink an alchemical concoction called Hunter’s Bane. It alters their lifeblood and… gives them their abilities,” he said, choosing to edit the part that stated that the drink bonds the hunter to darkness forever. “Do you remember your tribe forcing you to drink something?”

Yasha thought it over, as painful as it was to remember her past with them. “They forced me to do a lot of things. But… I don’t remember any ritual involving alchemy or dark magic. I didn’t have these abilities when I was a child, or when they named me Orphan Maker, or when I was with Zuala, which means that however much time I’m missing was very eventful.”

“Aren’t memory gaps the greatest?” he japed, taking another shot.

“We should form a club. Get matching jackets,” she replied before downing her own.

An uneasy quiet took hold of the room. Yasha did not ask Molly to read on, so he didn’t. He did, thankfully, break the silence. “What do you feel?” he asked, his voice low and gentle.

What did she feel? She closed her eyes and focused inwards, trying to get a sense of her current state of mind and body. As she concentrated, the sensations of the candlelit room and the pleasant company in it faded away. In her mind’s eye she saw a man larger than life with his back turned to her. It was so dark she couldn’t make out any of his features. The darkness was broken by a blinding flash of lightning. It felt so real that she nearly jumped out of her skin. There he continued to stand, illuminated by more flashes of lightning. He did not move, nor could she see his eyes, but his head seemed half-turned over his shoulder, as if he was waiting for her to speak or to catch up to him. From behind she felt someone lay their hand on her shoulder as a sudden heat grew into a red-hot burning. Out of the periphery of her vision she saw the shadows illuminated by an orange light. Before she could look behind to see who it was she heard him speak words in a language she did not know into her ear, the clanking of metal mixing with his velvet voice. In one ear the cracking and roaring of lightning and thunder before her was dominant, and in the other was the blood-chilling voice from behind saying,  _ “Orphan Maker.” _

When she opened her eyes again for real, it was only to look at her sword, laid out on the bed beside her. There was a vibration in her bones that felt like rolling thunder, announcing the arrival of an oncoming storm. She could feel her blood move through every vein in her body, sparking with an uneasy energy that part of her yearned to tap into. She had to grab her sword, an urge within her demanding it. She took hold of the blade with her left hand and pulled it slowly onto her lap. As she ran her right thumb over the flat of the blade, it seemed so natural and inviting to slide her thumb towards the edge and cut herself open. The answer to Molly’s question came out quietly, almost as a whisper. “I feel like there’s a storm in my blood, and all I gotta do is let it out.”

Just as her thumb was approaching the blade’s edge, a lavender hand covered it, preventing her from giving into the temptation. She looked up at Molly and saw the concern on his face. Without him asking, she put the blade down, and as soon as it was out of hand she picked up her glass and downed another shot of whiskey. The pair sat in silence for a moment as the energy of her blood magic subsided, letting her return to a normal state of mind.

Molly looked back at the book, quickly scanning the pages for anything else that would help them at the moment. He let out a defeated sigh, placing the book on the table. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful.”

She shook her head, taking another shot. “Don’t be. You’ve given me more answers in a night than I’ve uncovered for myself in months.” She had once thought that perhaps the Stormlord had made her one of his paladins, or maybe a warlock, but no. She was a blood hunter who had somehow found her way collapsed on an altar dedicated to him after who knows how long spent in the wilderness doing who knows what.

Another silence took hold of them. As it overstayed its welcome, Yasha looked up at Molly and saw the uncertain expression on his face, his lips moving in the shape of words he was thinking of saying. Yasha had never seen him unsure of himself in this way. She wondered what words would make Mollymauk Tealeaf hesitate to speak. 

“You don’t have to keep going down this path if you don’t want to,” he finally said. “Whoever drank that Hunter’s Bane was a completely different person. It doesn’t have to be who you are.”

Yasha looked away from him. She knew he meant well, and was speaking from personal experience. Molly was the only person she knew who she could turn to for this matter. Part of her wanted to follow his advice. She had a good life, a fun one. She had only been with the circus for half a year, but it was a damn good half-year. It didn’t make any sense to ruin that. But the price of keeping that simplistic life was too high for her.

“Do you remember when Kylre went missing and I found him? Even before Toya? I did that on instinct, like I had this knowledge and these talents that I didn’t know were apart of me. I can channel lightning through my sword, I can blind people with the power of my blood, and I have the eyes of a god watching me wherever I go.” She looked up at him, a sad plea for understanding in her eyes. “I have to find out why, Molly.”

He looked away from her, nodding sadly but sympathetically. Then, a moment later, before she could worry too much about how he took what she said, his lips curled back into a small smile. “Maybe we can find out together.”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“Tell you what, big girl, I’ve got an idea,” he said, pouring them both another shot as his usual energy and charm returned to his voice and face. “This circus is marvelous. We get to travel to dozens of places with some of the weirdest and most wonderful people imaginable, and I am so damn glad I found all of you. But I’ve already died at least once, so I know nothing lasts in this world forever. We don’t know anything about the future and what it holds. We’ll be at Trostenwald in a week, but who knows what could happen on the way there? If this circus disbands tomorrow, or if we get framed for a crime we didn’t commit and have to live on the run, or if some act of an angry god separates us from Gustav and the others, what say you and I stick together and, if you want, we try to fill those gaps in your memory? I’ll probably learn some new magical tricks along the way, and you get to figure out just why your blood is so magical.”

“What about your lost memories?” she asked.

Though he did not become grim or angry, his expression became much more serious. “Whoever that person who was buried in the ground is gone. I want nothing to do with whatever life he had. And the only part of his life that I’m glad to still have is this.” He held up his hand, and his silver staff with the red carvings flew across the room into his grip. With a wave of it, Molly cast a minor illusion on the table next to them, showing a miniature version of their circus tent, pitched up and ready for a night of revelry and dazzling crowds. “I am Mollymauk Tealeaf. This is who I choose to be. The tale I’m telling starts with me in that grave and it needs no prologue.”

Yasha picked up her drink. No matter what else, this night had at least brought the two closer together. Now, Yasha had a friend in this madness that was her life. “Well, when you put it that way, who wouldn’t want to be apart of a story like that?”

Molly smiled and raised his glass. “To the tale of Molly the Wizard and Yasha the Blood Hunter.”

The friends clicked their glasses and finished their drinks with a feeling of hope for the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COME BACK, YASHA! WE MISS YOU!
> 
> That aside, I’d like to thank everyone who read this series. It took much longer than I thought, but I am proud of this. I’ve suffered terrible writer’s block for years, and now I can say that I completed a series and published it online. That is an achievement that gives me great hope.
> 
> Thank you all for reading.
> 
> Sincerely,  
> A.F.S.M.A.S.


End file.
